Soul of Steel
by Lucenthia
Summary: A futuristic AU where two countries, Orthus and Olympus, have been locked in war for decades. This story follows Percy as he gets forced into the war, and forced to see the lengths at which people will go to for the sake of honour, power, glory, dignity, and most importantly, survival.
1. Chapter 1

Distractions had always been around Percy. Distractions were all he had, although he supposed being ADD helped. Was he lonely? He didn't think so, but then again, a deaf man didn't think he was missing out on not hearing any music. And a deaf man found ways to amuse himself, like noticing completely irrelevant things that would sometimes get him in trouble. Like an open door to a place that was usually off limits, or maybe a certain wall that always invited him to jump off it. It wasn't his fault he sometimes broke a leg, he would blame the wall. Or his bones. And then he'd get a metal brace in his leg that would quickly heal him in half a week, and he'd quickly move onto another wall. Or open door. Or random button. Seriously, who made huge, big, red buttons. That was just begging for them to be pressed. Granted, not everyone did it, but he wasn't everyone.

There he went, distracting himself again. But it was good, that way. It gave him something to do as he walked home, the buses not working because of the mass paranoia. Well, in all fairness, the Orthians had never advanced so far inland before, so there was reason for them to get a little worried, but for them to even shut the schools down, this far into Olympus, was a little over the top.

Percy walked along the houses that had blacked out windows (seven to each block), and scuffed his shoes along the blackened pavement (two hundred and twelve tiles). All the cities, even ones so far inland and away from the sea where the Orthians lived, were blacked out in case Orthians somehow managed to sneak past the front lines near the coast and two hundred kilometres inland.

Percy shivered at a chill wind that suddenly whistled through the dull buildings. The buildings were so dull, all the same shape and colour. Percy looked up at the cold mountains in the north, where the winds were coming from. The good thing about being in the north was that it was far away from the sea, the islands where Orthus was based. The bad thing was that it got cold. Very cold. Percy was regretting not bringing a jacket, and it wasn't even autumn.

Still, the mountains were nice to watch and Percy stood to watch them for a moment, or he would have if he didn't see a cat streak across the street. Another distraction. Weren't they entertaining. Percy looked across the road before crossing, although it was unnecessary. There hadn't been cars available for decades due to the war efforts consuming all fuel. Percy had only seen cars because of his father's importance, not that he knew what his dad had done to earn that respect. Probably from greasing all those palms at work. At work.

_I'll be at work_, he would say. Those four words had been the epitome of his dad's life. I can't spend time with my wife, Sally Jackson, the woman I loved because _I'll be at work. _I can't spend time with my teenage son who has no friends and is bored out of his mind because _I'll be at work. _I'm doing god knows what with important officials, sorry I can't tell you what but anything pertaining to the war is confidential, and that's alright because _I'll be at work._

Percy sighed and shook his head. His mother never approved of resentment, and Percy didn't hate his dad. His moods were as irregular as his actions, and sometimes he'd find himself in a bitter mood. Sometimes he'd find himself in a happy mood, usually due to blue food his mom cooked for him. He liked food, especially blue food, something that he didn't advertise because of Orthus' flag being blue almost all over. Blue, like the sea. It made sense, since Orthus consisted of islands and archipelagos to the south and east of Olympus. Olympus' flag was green, for the land and fields that grew all over it, and if almost a third of the country was an arid desert or covered in dry soil, they didn't let it on. Never let the enemy know your weaknesses, right?

By now, he'd gotten back to his house. It wasn't big, and didn't stick out. A boring house was dull on the eyes, but it was better than living in a mansion that was easy to find. Not that Orthians could ever get far past the coastlines before being gunned down by Olympians, but paranoia was in the job description of a member on the war cabinet, and his dad _(who was at work) _fit the bill perfectly. Be a normal student in a normal neighbourhood in a normal city. Be treated like a normal citizen, all because his dad wanted to protect them.

He opened the door to his house and walked in to see his mother open the oven and revealed ranks of blue cookies marching out in a parade of sweet steam. Percy grinned broadly and ran to hug his mother. She stepped back a little instinctively, since Percy had grown taller than her three years ago and was now a foot taller, but eagerly met his embrace.

"How was school?" She asked, "And why are you back so early?"

Percy shrugged. "Just more paranoia from the government. They evacuated the schools. How many cookies are there?"

"I'm sure you can count them in your spare time." Sally said, "Did you get any schoolwork?"

Percy shook his head. "They don't bother any more. All the classes get interrupted, and all the students get moved around. What did you put in those, they smell great."

Sally laughed, "I put the same thing in them every time. And you ask the same questions. You'd think you'd remember what went in them after all the years of asking."

"You always said I liked banging my head against a brick wall." Percy grinned, "Speaking of which, I saw this guy sleeping underneath this bridge right next to school."

Sally laughed, having long since gotten used to the way her son's mind moved about. They didn't get any visitors anymore due to early curfews being established, but Percy remembered the embarrassment she had subjected him to when he was younger with the stories of how ridiculously Percy might act.

It wasn't hard to think of examples. When Percy was younger his body moved as quickly and unpredictably as his mind and mouth did. One particular incident involved Percy intentionally jumping out the third floor window and breaking his leg. In Percy's defence, the bird outside had looked a lot closer than it was that day.

Percy found himself staring out the window at the opposite house, with it's normal and dull black windows. Percy understood that the windows had to be dark so as not to make easy targets for potential bombs, but why not brown, or dark blue. Yeah, dark blue, always a nice colour. Percy would often find himself spacing out and somehow missing out on a couple of seconds of his life. It was unexpected and unpredictable, just like him, he guessed.

He turned and noticed from the clock hanging on the black wall that he'd spaced out for a lot longer than a few seconds. Almost ten minutes. That wasn't normal, but then again, nothing much was. One day Percy would find himself with his mother in their home, confined there because of "potential dangers to society". He would ramble on about everything and anything he could find that might distract him. It was surprising, in retrospect, that he had thought of so many things to talk about in their small apartment. The day after, there might be children running through the streets, laughing and finding distractions everywhere, making castles out of broken walls and guns out of rubbish.

Life was just unpredictable, and no one ever knew what was going to happen. He heard his name being called, and turned to face Sally who was smiling at him with a blue cookie in her hand and another in her mouth. "You never ate one. I figured you must have been thinking about something else."

Percy nodded vigourously and headed straight for the batch of cookies (twelve of them) that had cooled in the time Percy had been staring out the window. His smile broadened as his teeth sank into the soft, sweet surface of the blue cookie, and crumbs spilt out of his open mouth.

Sally rolled her eyes, having long gotten used to Percy's careless eating habits and reached out for another one. They ate in content silence, silence because Percy's mouth was full and after fifteen years, Percy had picked up on the fact that spilling food all over the floor and table wasn't a good thing. Three years ago, Percy had even started to remember without needing Sally to remind him.

When they had both finished their third cookie each, Sally said, "Percy, I need you to throw out the trash again. Eat the rest of your cookies later."

Percy rolled his eyes and nodded. All things considered, he didn't many chores around the house. He helped wash up after he finished eating the delicious meals Sally made, most of them blue. He also did the jobs that required strength like when things needed fixing. But for the most part, Sally managed the whole house by herself.

Speaking of which, he was brought out of his thought by Sally shaking him gently. She smiled and said, "The trash?"

Percy nodded, and quickly went out. He went down the stairs (sixty seven of them) quickly to get back to those beloved cookies. Those beloved _blue _cookies. Always important to remember that. A weird comment, seeing as Percy only remembered less than half of what was said to him, but Percy guessed that when he was unpredictable and slightly irrational, hypocrisy came with the territory.

As he came out of the crisp air, Percy bumped into someone and almost stumbled off the pavement, not that he would get run over by a car, there weren't any. He looked, but the man had just brushed past him, not looking or caring about anyone around him. It was sad how often Percy had seen people like that, only looking down, concentrating on what was happening around them and what they could do to avoid it.

That, in Percy's opinion, was what happened when people didn't get distracted. Their minds went in spirals until it crashed. As he was thinking these deep and philosophical thoughts, no doubt fit for a university if there were any in Olympus, Percy realized he'd already thrown away the trash without thinking.

He turned and saw someone lying on the pavement on the other side of the street, his form covered by the shadow of the buildings next to him. All Percy saw were his legs, which were covered in dark green jeans. Like Olympus' flag, or a tree, or maybe the sea. Well, maybe not the sea, if the teachings of Olympus were to be believed. According to Olympus, the sea was black and a sickly yellow, due to the pollution and poor waste regulation of Orthus. The residents on the archipelago had polluted the sea so badly there weren't any fish to be caught.

Turning back up, Percy bounded up the stairs, remembering the cookies he had been promised only when he had passed the first flight of stairs.

The thought of cookies was still in the forefront of his mind when he reached for the doorknob to the apartment. It was the last thing he was thinking of as the bomb that had been set inside went off.

But that was just life. Unpredictable.

* * *

Fire. That was all Percy felt. No distractions around, just fire. That didn't help him. He wanted to scream but his mouth didn't seem to exist. Was it melted off? Was it? What had happened? Why couldn't he scream? Why, why, why? Percy was on fire, and he felt so _cold._

Cold, like the ice cream his mom had used to buy him when he was a kid, when there still was ice cream around.

_"Blue's weird!" _Percy had said when his mom had used to get him the bright blue colour that no one else ever seemed to eat. Sally had just smiled and said, _"Isn't blue your favourite colour?"_

_"Well, I guess," _Percy had said, looking away, _"But the teachers at school say we're not meant to like blue, cuz blue's the colour of Orthus."_

_"Do you think that?" _Sally had said, holding the sky-blue ice cream in her hand. It was starting to melt and trickled down the cone. Percy had thought it was like the snow that melted in the mountains at the start of every spring. He had liked springwater, it tasted good, even though it had rocks and moss and other green stuff in it.

_"Do you think blue is Orthus' colour?" _Sally had repeated getting his attention again. Percy thought and had said, _"Course not! It's the colour of the sky, or the colour of your shirt, or the colour of my teacher's eyes. I don't like her much though, she's always really mean to Orthians."_

Sally had smiled and handed him the ice cream cone, which Percy dug into dutifully. _"You see? Nothing's defined by a colour, or a voice. Everything's a lot more complicated."_

Percy had frowned, and opened his mouth which was dripping with blue ice cream, like he had dipped his head in blue paint. _"What does _define _mean?"_

Sally had laughed, and ruffled his black hair, _"Define is when people try to say what something means. But it's always complicated, so it's hard to define things."_

She had looked down and saw Percy looking at the bricks on the walls they were walking past. He had been poking the cracks and running his fingers along the grooves of the bricks. She had probably laughed, but Percy didn't know. He had been concentrating on something else.

Too bad he couldn't concentrate on it now as he screamed his throat raw. _So cold, so hot, so cold, hot, cold hot._ He couldn't even put a single word to what he felt, no matter how badly he wanted to scream. It was kept within him, and it hurt.

He had seen that hurt in his dad in the few times he came. He remembered seeing the guarded look in his eyes whenever he came back. There was this one time Poseidon came home and Percy had thrown himself at his father in joy. Looking up into Poseidon's eyes, Percy had expected to see pleasure or startlement. What Percy hadn't expected see was hardness. Percy's smile had faltered, and Poseidon had looked away awkwardly. Sally had quickly come and pulled Percy back, he had gotten too big for his mom to carry, and told him to go to his room.

Some children looked at this as a punishment, but Percy had never felt the same way. His room was a place where he could think and imagine the wildest things he could. Going to his room meant a break from everyday life and reality.

Still, as Percy had bounded up to his room, he could hear raised voices, although he didn't stop to wonder what they were talking about. He hadn't even consider the fact that they might have been talking about him. Some minutes later, Poseidon had come to knock on Percy's door, and Percy flung it open and smiled broadly at him. He had already forgotten how Poseidon had looked at him without any emotion and had asked, _"Wanna see my room?"_

Poseidon's eyes had flickered, and shown the surprise that Percy had expected downstairs. _"Yes, that would be wonderful."_

Percy had started to show Poseidon the toothpicks that he had bent into various shapes when Poseidon had cut in. _"I'm sorry you don't see me much. I-I'm just busy at work and everything."_

Percy had nodded once then went back to his fascinating imaginary world, where the concerns of a nation had been insignificant and the worries of an insecure parents completely groundless. _"I know. You're busy fighting monsters and stuff, right?"_

Poseidon had laughed and had said _"Yes, monsters. In more ways than one. Do you ha-?" _Poseidon had trailed off. When Percy had looked up at him expectantly, Poseidon had just shaken his head and asked, _"Are you well?"_

Percy had nodded once and gone back to his game, tossing toothpicks and small bits of concrete around a make-believe battlefield. His parents had tried to get Percy interested in conventional toys, but when it was clear that it made no difference to Percy, his parents had let him play with scraps. Toys, after all, were a rarity. They used resources that would be better put into fighting back Orthians. Monsters and soldiers had fought valiantly in Percy's universe, also known as his room, and Poseidon had looked on with a small smile on his face.

_"How do you tell them apart?" _Poseidon had asked, looking at the toothpicks strewn around. Percy had looked at him in puzzlement. Of course the toothpicks were different. They were of different lengths. Some were bent to the left, some curled around, while others had strands sticking out of both ends. How could anyone not tell the difference?

Percy had probably forgot the question, as Poseidon asked again, _"Percy?"_

Percy had looked up with wide eyes expectantly. Poseidon had hesitated again, then had asked, _"How have you been eating?"_

Percy had shrugged again and went back to his work. He hadn't understood anything his father was asking. Why was it important how well he was eating? It just didn't make sense, not in Percy's universe _(room)._

Percy hadn't remembered much more of Poseidon's visit, only remembered hugging his father as he left. _"I hope I can see you again, my son. I do care for you." _He had looked at Sally sadly then left.

Like Percy wanted to leave, wanted to leave this life of pain, if this was all it amounted to. The pain didn't come in waves, it was just there, not hot, not cold, just there. It became a part of him, the tearing of his body, until he blacked out again.

* * *

"Why are we doing this? It doesn't make any sense." Voices above him. Voices above him as he floated. The pain was gone, and his skin clenched and cringed at the sensation, or absence of it.

"We have no choice. He has dominion over his inventions, it is not up to us." Percy was floating. It felt nice. Was this what swimming felt like? He had seen Orthians in textbooks swimming, and they always looked grim and violating. What about fish? Were they grim and malicious, or were they free like Percy.

"This isn't right. He's too unstable." Were they talking about him? He had been described as unstable, not too his face of course, but in conversation that were meant to be private. He had very good hearing, sharp senses all around. He just never applied any of them in real life.

"Do not judge him by what you see. He may surprise us." Surprises were good, weren't they? Percy always thought so, but his teachers never had. They didn't like surprises. Order was key to defeating the Orthians. Order and discipline. That was the way to defeat the unruly chaos that would come if Orthians came forth.

_"You must be ever vigilant", _the teachers at his school had said. _"You may not be able to contribute much now, but when you grow, it will be up to you to cary the burden of Olympus."_

Percy had asked something, but he hadn't remembered what. He just remembered being sent to the principal's office for another talking Percy had liked surprises. Maybe that was why he was considered as unstable or unusable. He had grown up in a lower class area, the better to hide his identity. It was stressed to him over and over never to reveal who his father was, and for some reason it was a secret he had been able to keep.

"Fine. It's not like we have a choice. Let's just get it over with."

And Percy, who was floating, felt himself sink back into unconsciousness.

* * *

_"Mom, does dad love us?"_

Percy had remembered asking Sally the question when he was seven or eight. It was something his classmates had yelled at him when they found out Percy's dad wasn't around. This had been when they were living in a larger apartment, and had room for both a living room and a kitchen. Sally had been chopping onions, and when she'd quickly whirled around brandishing a knife, Percy had flinched.

Sally had smiled and laid down the knife and asked, _"Who told you that? Was it someone at school?"_

Percy had nodded and Sally had sighed. _"Why do they think dad doesn't love us?"_

Percy had shrugged and said, _"It's cuz he's never around."_

Sally had frowned slightly. Percy normally never remembered things that had happened at school. His attention span was just too short to take in anything he wasn't interested in, and back then, school had been the combination of everything boring in Percy's life squashed into eight hours every day.

_"Do I love you?" _Sally had asked. She had knelt and laid her hands on Percy's shoulders, getting Percy's shirt slightly oily from the food she had just been preparing. Percy had nodded fervently to Sally's question, and she had continued, _"What if I had to leave to protect you. Would I still love you?"_

Percy had thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. _"Are you saying dad's like that?"_

_"Yes," _Sally had said. _"He isn't always around, but it's because he loves you."_

Percy hadn't looked up since the moment Sally had put her hands on his shoulders, and he had muttered, _"Will you ever leave me?"_

_"Of course not, sweetheart. I'd never leave you."_

_"Why not?" _Percy had muttered. The floor had always interested him. All the cracks, like rivers in the skin of the wood. But he hadn't been able to lose himself in the endless patterns this time. He seemed to be fixed in the real world this time.

_"Because I love you." _Sally had said, _"Why are you suddenly worrying about this kind of stuff?"_

Percy had shrugged again. He had shrugged a lot, and he still did. It was like he was shaking off the weight on his shoulders that came from not knowing what he felt. _"Cuz all the kids say that dad never loved you, and you weren't worth loving."_

_"Percy, love is complicated." _Sally had said. She had sat down on the floor and was now looking up earnestly into Percy's eyes. _"But everyone has different ways of expressing their love. Just know that your father does love you, and I love you as well. But do you know who has to love you the most?"_

Percy had shaken his head and Sally continued, _"It's important that you love yourself. Just so long you love yourself and know that you're worth loving, then it doesn't matter who else loves you. Understand?"_

Percy hadn't. He'd just shaken his head again. But the talk with his mother had been enough to let him forget what his classmates had said, and he had started getting the itch. This itch wasn't the type that he could get rid of by scratching. This was the itch that meant he was going to do something. This was the itch that started at the back of his head and worked its way to his hands, the itch that always followed him messing something up or fiddling with something he wasn't supposed to. The itch in his eyes that made him notice everything and nothing, skimming over each blacked out window of the dreary city he lived in and taking in everything for a second before he forgot it. The itch in his feet as they insisted on tapping a random and pointless rhythm on the black pavement of empty streets of the city.

He had itched like that more times than he could ever remember, ever since he was a toddler. So when Percy woke for real, staring at a bright ceiling and found he was itching, he wasn't worried.

But then he realized that the current itch was different.

It started as a prickle in his arm, his heart, his whole body. It felt like insects crawling over his skin, like the cockroaches he sometimes saw crawl through cracks in the brick walls of broken buildings. Percy walked by them every day on his way back home. Buildings that had been attempted to be built, but dropped halfway. He remembered the posters that were stuck on the wall, promising _New buildings for faithful Olympians! _and _Hope and creation right around the corner! _

But then these insects started biting into his arm. Percy jerked his body to try and stop the feeling, but he was restrained. Small stabbing pains that went through his flesh (hadn't it been burnt?) and into his bones (hadn't they been shattered?) and drove him absolutely crazy. Percy fidgeted and struggled and his breath started coming in short gasps. The explosion. He remembered it. Well, he remembered heat and fire for a second before blacking out.

Who? Why? How? It didn't make sense? Why did it happen? It wasn't fair. And how was he alive? What had happened to Sally? She had been inside right? He would have been inside. But how had he survived? It didn't make sense. How, how, how. Where was he? His breathing became ragged and his eyes dilated. His mom, his great, great mom. Where was she?

"I told you we shouldn't have cut down on his morphine level," came a voice to Percy's left. He turned around and saw a blond girl with intense grey eyes glaring down at him.

"Wha- who are you?" Percy gasped. His arm was now throbbing, along with the rest of his body. The girl frowned, and said to no one, "I get that we need to talk to him, but we can't do that when his heart rate's over one-seventy." She paused, as if someone invisible was talking to her, and sighed. "Fine, I'll do my best, but can I at least give him some valium? Looks like he's going to hyperventilate."

Now that the girl mentioned it, Percy realized his heart was beating fast against the pressure that seemed to rise from the pain he was feeling. The leather straps on his bed were biting into his skin, but he didn't feel it because his arms were already burning up.

He looked over to the girl and saw that she was injecting something into his arm. He tried to jerk it away, but his arms were restrained. Amazing the things he could forget, wasn't it? He watched the syringe go in, but couldn't feel anything. Almost instantly he felt himself calm down. The burning sensation was still there, and his heart was still trying gouge its way out of his chest, but he was still calmer. He felt like he could lie down for a long time.

"Okay, that should be better," the girl said. "Now tell me what happened."

Percy looked up at her and said, "Why are your eyes so grey?"

The girl's expression didn't change. "I ask the questions, not you. Now tell me what happened."

"That isn't really fair," Percy said, "How about we each ask a question, and we each have to respond."

"How about I cut off your morphine entirely." was the cold response. The girl started to fiddle with the dials and the burning instantly increased. Percy's eyes widened and he clawed at the blankets. This hurt worse than the time he had shoved a melted cookie right into his mouth and burnt his throat as the molten dough had trickled down his gullet. Even worse than when he had been caught in the explosion and sent flying, because that had been quick.

Suddenly, the pain stopped. He looked up at the girl, who was frowning slightly and looking into the distance. Maybe she was crazy. Did she have voices in her head or something? Then she rearranged her face into the emotionless mask and said, "My eyes are grey because they're modified. Now your turn. What happened?"

Percy smiled weakly and said, "Thanks. That wasn't so hard, was it? My name's Percy, what's yours? Sorry, I'd shake your hand but I'm a little tied down at the moment."

"Tied up." The girl had narrowed her eyes at him, but seemed to have corrected him almost unconsciously. Percy turned his head at her, and asked, with eloquence and locution, "What?"

"The phrase is to be tied up, not down." The girl said, "And you were supposed to answer my question."

"I gave you more information. Shouldn't you pay me back?" Percy asked, "Oh, by the way, where am I?"

The girl's eyes and her expression didn't waver, as she pressed a button on her ear. Percy wasn't sure how it worked, but it seemed like her earlobe glowed for half a second and she started to talk again. "Chiron, get me out of here."

She paused as the person on the recieving end, probably Chiron (weird name, sounded like a siren. Like the sirens that went on whenever there was a threat of bombings.) talked to her, and said, "I know what my talents are, but can he's just so dense. Get one of the Stolls or Clarrise to do it."

"Who stole Clara's what?" Percy asked nonchalantly. "Do you have an earpiece in your ear, by the way? How can I get one?"

The girl had stopped talking with Chiron and looked at Percy as if she was about to leap into a deep chasm or run straight to Orthus. Then she said, "I'm Annabeth, you're in a government facility that we residents like to call Camp Half-Blood, the Stolls and Clarrise are other residents, I do have an earpiece in my ear, and you already have one."

For once, Percy was shocked speechless from trying to interpret all the information the girl, no, Annabeth had given him. He remembered her name, and that he had an earpiece in his ear. Then his eyes shot up to meet Annabeth's grey ones as she said, "Now. Tell. Me. What. Happened."

Percy thought back and said, "Well, I was throwing out the trash, and then I walked back up and there was an explosion. That was it."

That was it. His mom gone. She had been so good, always there, always loving him. And no more blue cookies. It was stupid, he knew it was, to sum up their love with blue cookies, but there it was. He loved his mom because of her blue cookies.

_Everyone has different ways of expressing their love, _she had said. Percy realized he was crying. How had he expressed his love? By eating her blue cookies? It just seemed unreal and false. What had he ever done? A wave of sadness suddenly washed over him, leaving his face cold as if he'd just been doused in cold seawater. Not that he'd ever been doused in seawater before, but he thought it would have been an interesting experience. He wondered what it would taste like. Maybe like the instant rations Percy and his mom had sometimes had to eat when times were bad.

_"Don't be picky," _she had said, _"There are a lot worse things than eating salty food."_

_"But it's not blue." _Percy had said childishly. Well, he had been nine, and that was still a kid, wasn't it? Well, what was a kid? A kid was someone who played around, someone who was loved. So who was he now? Could he afford to play around? Was he loved now?

He was aware of Annabeth looking at him with those piercing grey eyes and talking to Chiron on her earpiece. "This is why I said the Stolls should have done it. This kid isn't capable of lying anyways, it's not like you needed me, and they're good at detecting lies and weeding out information." Her brow wrinkled slightly again in annoyance and she said, "I know I was insensitive, I just wasn't thinking, alright? Just talk to him tomorrow or something."

Percy tried to calm down, tried not to get distracted by his own thoughts, which was incredibly hard. He looked all around him but nothing caught his eye. A blank room with blank walls, blank chairs, and a blank bed. They were all white except for his arm.

That got his attention. His arm was dark black. That definitely shocked him. He turned up and looked at Annabeth. "Why's my arm black?"

"I just answered five of your questions, you should answer four more of mine?" Annabeth said with finality. "Did you see anyone outside?"

Percy shrugged and said, "I think so. There was a guy I bumped into on the way up the stairs. But what's this agreement about asking and answering questions?"

"You were the one who made it up." Annabeth said it slowly like she was trying not to punch him. Percy frowned and asked, "When did I say that?"

Annabeth stood up abruptly and for a moment Percy thought she was going to drop kick him. Instead, she walked off and slammed the door behind her as she left.

Percy stared at the door quizzically, then shrugged. He wondered when someone else would come and visit. He needed distractions, craved them. Because without them he would think about his mom, and how she wouldn't be there for him anymore. And he would realize that he was alone.

* * *

**So, that was the first chapter to my first PJO stories. Please tell me what you think. I'm not sure if I crammed too much info in there, or if there wasn't enough action or too much of Percy's inner thoughts, so if you have suggestions for improvements, don't be shy.**

**I'm also writing a Kingdom Hearts story at the same time. I know the two fandoms don't cross over much, but if you do happen to share interests in both fandoms, go check Veritas et Caelum out. I'm interested to see if I can update two stories at once regularly. I know some who can juggle several, and I know some who can't, so we'll see.****  
**

**Thanks! 'till next time.**


	2. Chapter 2

When Percy woke, he wasn't sure when, he saw Annabeth standing above him looking at him emotionlessly. Like last time. Percy hoped things didn't go like last time. He didn't like having his supply of whatever was being pumped into him cut off. What was it again? Morpheus? Morphism?

"Hello, Percy. Apologies for your last conversation with Annabeth."

Percy looked around and saw a man sitting down next to Annabeth. Percy couldn't lift his head to see anything below the man's head, but he liked the look of the scruffy brown beard that seemed to merge with his hair and cover up his glasses.

It had been a while since Percy had seen glasses. They were so rare nowadays, especially since no one made them anymore. It also helped that not many people admitted to having eye problems because that would only mean they were weak.

_"Our body is a temple, and a temple must be maintained." _The teachers had said as they had made the students run laps or do other bits of exercises. _"Our body is a temple, and we must pay tribute to Olympus. Never let it grow weak or untended."_ The teachers themselves seemed huge and imperious, looking down upon the students a lot like how Annabeth was looking down at him now.

"I'm Chiron," the man continued, "and we would like to explain your current situation to you."

Chiron fiddled with some buttons on the side of Percy's bed, and suddenly the restrainers that were holding Percy loosened and undid themselves. Letting out a breath, Percy sat upright and tried to get out of bed but Annabeth pushed him back down.

"Don't try walking yet." Annabeth said, "You have to adjust to your new body."

What was Annabeth talking about? Was this like when he had gone through puberty and tripped over things even more than usual. He was usually clumsy because he never looked down, which meant he tripped over things or accidentally knocked things off tables.

_"Percy, you're growing quickly," _his mom had said, _"You have to get used to it first. Take things a little slowly."_

_"But it's boring." _Percy had said, dragging the last word out. _"Besides, it's not like I knock anything important over."_

_"I think that's just because your teachers and I know not to put anything valuable near you." _His mom's smile was always comforting. It made him relax. Her eyes always seemed bright, regardless of whether the lights in their apartment were working.

_"My teachers say it's because I have ADD," _Percy said, _"Is that another word for stupid?"_

His mom had frowned, and for a moment Percy was actually scared. Not because his mom's frown itself was scary, but just because it happened so rarely.

_"No, Percy. You're not stupid."_ his mom had said, _"ADD is what they call being distracted a lot. In a couple of ways, they're right. It's because you're distracted that you forget where a lot of things are, including your limbs. But that doesn't make you stupid, okay?"_

Percy nodded slowly. _"Thanks, mom. Did you make more blue cookies?"_

He guessed his mom must have smiled or laughed, because that was what she always did. But no one was smiling or laughing now, especially now that Percy was looking at his own arms and legs.

His left leg was the same, only very red because of the flesh being burnt off. But his arms and right leg were different. They were black and hard, and made of metal. His eyes widened as he looked at Annabeth. "What is this? What've you done?"

"Saved your life." Annabeth said. Percy found it weird how her expression never changed. Well, there was the time before where she had frowned, but Percy hadn't seen her do anything else with her expression.

Percy opened his mouth to say something, but Chiron gently cut him off. "You were severely injured by the explosion. You had burns all over your skin, and three of your four limbs were unusable."

"But why did you stick metal plating around my arms?" Percy said, "And why do you even need me?"

"Yes, Chiron," Annabeth said pointedly, "Why do we need him?"

Chiron looked at her sternly, like the way Percy's teachers had looked at him whenever they prepared themselves for _talking _with Percy.

_"Let's have a little talk," _they'd say, and they'd drag him out of the classroom, telling him to ignore the jeers of Percy's classmates. Oh, I see Percy's messed up his essay he was supposed to write, _so let's have a little talk. _Was Percy late again because he was distracted by the cracks on the walls? _Let's have little talk._

"We have discussed this, Annabeth," Chiron said, "Let's not prolong a futile argument." Turning back to Percy, he said, "We have not put metal plating over your limbs. When we arrived at the scene, there wasn't much left of them. You have metal limbs now. Cyborg replacements, they are called."

Percy lifted his arms and looked at them. They didn't feel any different. Maybe a bit lighter, but Percy's limbs were always flying all over the place, even when he was fifteen, so that wouldn't make a difference. Percy then realized that Chiron was talking again, and he did his best to pay attention, although it was extremely hard to do so, what with all the interesting grooves his new arm had.

"You might be wondering why we chose you to recruit." Chiron was saying, "The reason for this is not as altruistic as you might imagine. You see, your father wished it so."

Percy instantly looked up. That got his attention quickly. His father. Wasn't he at work? What was he doing in this place?

"Now he pays attention," Annabeth muttered.

Chiron looked at her again, as if he was going to _talk _to her. Then he turned to face Percy. "Yes, you see, you have no doubt heard about the war between Olympus and Orthus, and there are still multitudes of soldiers that fight conventionally. However, as our technology has improved, we have made inroads into physically enhanced soldiers."

It was a long speech, and Percy only listened to the first few words. He was more interested in the fact that Chiron was in a wheelchair. He hadn't been able to see it from his position when he was lying down, but now he realized Chiron was paralyzed from the waist down. He must have done terribly in school. First these glasses, now legs that didn't work. Olympian teachings dictated that he was practically useless, yet he was apparently in charge. This was definitely an unpredictable place.

"Where am I?" Percy suddenly asked, cutting off whatever Chiron was saying. Chiron smiled and said, "You are in a facility where we house cyborgs such as yourself."

Percy blinked. "But why did my dad want me alive? How did he even know I was almost dying?"

Chiron stole a glance at Annabeth before saying, "He needs you."

For a moment, a small moment, Percy focused on that one statement. Focused would be what most people would call it, but for Percy it was going into a state where he didn't think. No random tune in his head. No little details that travelled through his brain. He just concentrated on that one statement. And then it was over. He unpaused and he was thinking again, noticing things.

"What do you mean?" Percy asked, "How do you even know my dad?" Was this where he went to work? Was this what sucked up so much of his time?

"Your father was made part of the war cabinet because of one of his inventions." Chiron said, "Cybernetic technology has been part of our arsenal for almost two decades, but he was the pioneer behind a type of cyborg that had been previously thought impossible to build."

Percy's thoughts started to drift again. This place was for cyborgs to be trained and to fight on the front lines. But why did his dad need him? What kind of dad sent his own son into war?

_"I hope I can see you again, my son," _Poseidon had said, _"I do care for you."_

It didn't seem that way. Was this Poseidon's own way of showing love? Percy suddenly gasped as Annabeth pulled at his hair. Percy quickly slapped her hand away as she said, "Your dad invented cyborg installations that allow you to breathe, see and swim underwater." Turning to Chiron, she said, "You have to talk to him in sound bites that he can digest or he'll just go off somewhere. You really want someone like him with all that power?"

Chiron looked at her and said, "Perhaps you are bringing something else into this. Go and show Percy around, will you? Get him used to his new limbs."

Annabeth's eyes flashed, but the rest of her face stayed the same. Percy wondered if it was a mask that she would peel off everyday in her room. Percy would like a mask like that. Maybe have an eternal smile on his face. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Percy was suddenly pulled to his feet by Annabeth's grip, and Percy was surprised to find that he could feel Annabeth's tight grip on his arm, even though it was made of metal. It was warm, a lot warmer than her gaze gave her credit for. It was a good thing she was holding onto him, because the moment he put weight on his mechanical leg he started to fall. It was like the time he had gotten pins and needles in his leg, and his entire leg turned numb, as if it wasn't a part of him. He could jerk it and it would move, but it was like only his hip would jerk, and the rest of his leg wasn't part of him.

_"It's because there isn't any blood in your leg anymore," _his mom reassured him, when Percy had first come to her with that particular ailment, _"Just wait a bit, and the blood will come back."_

And it had, although it had hurt. He felt the warm blood trickled down his shin and into his foot. It had tickled when he put weight on it, and he had limped for another ten minutes. Percy felt the same thing now. The stabbing of the cockroaches that always crawled through the cracks of abandoned buildings now attacked his new leg and arms. They crawled through his neck and up into his head where they stabbed him over and over.

Percy doubled over and Annabeth was somehow still holding him up, even though she was a foot shorter than he was. He didn't have headaches often, but there was this one time where he had decided to jump down some flights of stairs and hit his head on the wall. Blood had come running out, and Percy had remembered it tasted cool.

His mom had taken him inside their house and quickly patched him up, given him medicine for the pain. He had forgotten what it was called. But this time Sally wasn't there to help him, to patch up his wounds for him. His mom was gone. Gone, and there was no one to patch up his wounds. Why was she gone? It just didn't make sense? Where was she?

And then tears were running down his face. Not because of the cockroaches in his head, but because of the _BANG! _that took his mom away. Just one _BANG! _and the best woman in the world was gone. It wasn't fair, it wasn't. Why did the _BANG! _have to take her? Why not his dad who was _away at work_ or his teachers who _had little talks with him?_ Why her?

Percy realized he was lying back down on his bed with Annabeth leaning over him, fiddling with something on his arm. It was strange, but Percy noticed she didn't have an adam's apple. Her neck was hanging over him, so he could see the sinews of her throat. They clenched and twisted as she said, "Giving him some extra valium. Do we want to give him some morphine as well?"

Percy heard Chiron say, "No, it's best to start weaning him off it now. Don't give him too much valium either."

Annabeth nodded and pulled away from Percy. He looked over and saw something sticking out of a hole in his new arm. Percy looked at it more closely and saw that there were some more holes in his arms. He wondered what they were for. They looked like plugs that were in a few of the more advanced buildings, the ones that were well shielded enough to use electricity. They didn't have those in his current school, but when he was younger he remembered poking one with a fork and experiencing sudden and abrupt pain. He had poked at it a few more times until he had cried, causing his mom to quickly come and tell him not to poke those things with forks. In fact, he should never go near those things until he was older.

Well, he was older now. He guessed that made him more qualified to be around those sockets. His fingers were longer than they he was used to as well. Longer and skinner, but probably a lot harder. He flexed them, and turned his wrist, and was amazed to see that it could rotate the whole way.

He looked up at Annabeth questioningly, and she said, "That's one of your modifications. A lot harder to break wrists when they can rotate like that.

Percy nodded and asked, "Do you have holes like those as well?"

Annabeth raised her eyebrows in surprise despite herself and stood up. "I really hope you mean it in the most innocent of ways possible." Her hand had drifted down to her pockets, and Percy wondered if she had a gun or a knife concealed there.

Chiron cleared his throat and said, "Annabeth doesn't. Her arms never needed to be modified." He cocked his head, and his eyes behind the fascinating spectacles looked concernedly at Percy. "I'm sorry for your loss. Do you wish to lie here another day or two?"

Percy shook his head. He needed distractions. He needed them to stay active, to not think about his mom _(BANG!) _and his dad _(I'll be at work) _and everything else that just didn't make sense. He tried to get out of bed again, and almost fell a second time. His arms didn't seem to belong to him either. He needed to push more than usual to get them moving, and afterwards they kept on moving a lot more than he'd intended. He caught himself with his good leg while his arms windmilled about frantically. Chiron wheeled back which Percy was glad for. He'd feel bad hitting an old man who was disabled in the face with a metal arm.

He slowly steadied himself and started to walk again. This time he was ready and only limped. His knee buckled, but he was still able to keep going. His fingers fumbled at the door handle, and Percy wasn't able to get his fingers around the doorknob properly. They were scrabbling like the spiders Percy found in the shower did when he grabbed them and threw them out. There was one time he had tried to give one to his mom but she had drawn back quickly and told him, very calmly, to throw the thing out the window. Any other parent would have screamed at him, would have gotten angry, maybe even hit him _(BANG!), _but Sally never had. His mother never had hit him, raised her voice, and she was dead. _BANGBANGBANGBA-_

"Stop." Annabeth said calmly. She put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Stop. You're not getting any closer."

Percy ignored her, or maybe her voice just didn't register in Percy's thoughts of his mom and thoughts of things that went _BANG!._

Annabeth grabbed his face and looked at him intensely. Percy focused on those grey eyes, and he saw, now that he looked closer, that Annabeth's eyes didn't have any whites in her eyes. They were grey all over, with grey pupils and grey irises. "Stop it now."

Percy relaxed his grip on the doorknob and Annabeth turned it for him. She looked back at Chiron and raised an eyebrow, like she was asking why she was being stuck with someone like Percy, then walked out without looking at Percy saying, "You'll have to work on your dexterity. Don't stress out either."

Percy started to follow her and found that Chiron was wheeling his chair alongside him as well. "You'll have to get used to Annabeth. She's been like this for a while."

"Oh. How long have you known her?" Percy asked. He was finding the spokes on Chiron's wheelchair fascinating. They seemed to move so quickly even though Chiron himself wasn't moving faster than Percy was walking. The rhythmic motion of his hands pushing down the wheels again and again, Percy felt like he could stare at that for a long time, almost a minute or two.

"I've known her since she came here five years ago," Chiron said. "I was here when this facility was first set up and I've acted as a sort of administrator of this place."

"Why don't you get new legs?" Percy asked. Chiron looked up at him and said, "Cybernetic limbs need the original nerve endings to work. The damage was done in my spine, and unless I get my spine replaced, there is no hope of regaining use of my limbs."

Percy nodded, already thinking of how interesting Chiron's beard was. He remembered his dad having one, but all the other adults he'd seen were well-shaven. Just another one of Olympus' rules. Well, not the types of rules that were written out clearly on a blackboard, but the type of rule that needed no voicing or articulation. The most dangerous type of rule that needed no reason or sense to exist. The unwritten one.

Chiron was talking about something else now, something about how Percy's nerves were burnt but not dead. But Percy was more interested in the corridors they were walking through. THey branched off everywhere, and there were pipes on the top of all the walls that followed the corridors and went down into various rooms. There were a lot of rooms, or at least, a lot of doors. Percy supposed a door didn't have to lead into a room.

But when Annabeth opened a door and stepped inside, Percy found that this one did indeed, lead to a room. It was a huge one with walls higher than many buildings Percy would pass through on his way home with the familiar cockroaches running through the walls, and wide enough to fit the entire body of students that went to Percy's school. There were bars and ropes dangling from the ceiling, and also several rings that had people sparring in them. Percy looked about in amazement, never able to stop at one marvel. There were the ways the ropes swung like a pendulum ever so rhythmically in time to the grunts of exertion coming from below. And then there were the people themselves jumping a lot higher than should normally be possible over flames, bars, and swinging poles.

He saw a small stall in one corner of this huge room that sold food, where a couple of people were getting bread from. He felt his gaze get drawn to one of the sparring ring where two people were engaging in hand to hand combat. It was fast, but Percy could keep up easily. There was a rhythm to it, like there was rhythm to the ropes that hung from the _(high, high)_ ceiling, or the clock on his school wall that always ticked and tocked in the exact same progression.

Tick, tock, tick,, tock. And just like this clock, Percy saw where each strike would land right as it did. It seemed remarkable to him how much the fight flowed.

And then his attention was grabbed by people shooting arrows down one length of the room. They hit with perfect accuracy always landing within the bullseyes. He found the swords shining on racks fun to look at, like how they shimmered and danced in the harsh lights on the ceiling alongside the axes, shadows of the people training, and Percy's thoughts.

None of the other children, yes, most of them were children, paid Percy any attention. He turned and asked Chiron, "Why are they practicing fighting with swords? Don't Orthians have guns?"

Chiron nodded. "While it's true that most wars are conducted on a more technologically advanced scale," Percy wondered if Chiron always talked in long sentences. He wondered how anyone managed to concentrate when Chiron took ages to say whatever he wanted to. Even though Annabeth was rude and scary and didn't want to talk to him (and was also nice to look at) she talked shortly and concisely. He walked up to Annabeth and asked, "Do you fight Orthians with swords now?"

She looked at him with a slight frown on her face. Again. She seemed to have two masks, an expressionless one and a frowning one that clearly said _I don't want to talk to you. _"There are times where we have to do things without guns. There's a firing range next door, but firing heavy duty missiles aren't our job."

That was the kind of answer Percy wanted. He had drifted off near the end, but had still gotten a good idea of what was said. He wondered how he was ever going to fight or climb or run like that. His attention was drawn by some shouting from one of the sparring rings where two people were yelling at each other. Chiron made to go forward, but Annabeth shook her head and walked towards them purposefully.

"That was totally my win, Stoll!" A girl was yelling. Her arms were thick and red along with her hair that fell down to her shoulders. Were her arms modified as well? Maybe that was why the spear in her hand was sparking with electricity. Percy looked at the spear more closely. There didn't seem to be any wires on the surface, but maybe there was something underneath.

The boy she was talking to shrugged and said, "Says the one who would've gotten a knife in the back." Percy found this boy interesting as well, but not because of his brown hair or blue eyes, or because of his casual reply despite having a huge electrifying spear pointed at him. He was relaxed and had a huge smile on his face. It was funny considering all the weapons in this place.

"You cheated and you know it." The girl pointed the spear at Stoll's face, but Stoll still didn't make a move to defend himself. By now, the others in the room had stopped practicing and were waiting to see what would happen. Maybe something would have, but Annabeth said, "Clarrise, Travis, stop."

Clarrise whirled around to glare at Annabeth, but Annabeth's _I don't care _mask was on, full with unnaturally grey eyes and devoid of expression.

"That sneaking bastard cheated!" Clarrise started to say, but Annabeth cut her off. "Of course he did. You don't think you should cheat when you're out there? You should've expected it. Now get out and cool off."

Growling, Clarrise thrust her spear towards Annabeth which had red lightning fork out of the tip, and Percy heard several people hold their breath. But Percy saw that the spear would go off course as Clarrise had planned it. She wasn't seriously going to stab Annabeth in the head. Annabeth knew that as well, because she didn't flinch or move, and her expressionless mask stayed on as she looked at Clarrise. "Get out and cool off."

Clarrise huffed and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her as she did so. Annabeth turned to Travis, or Stoll, Percy wasn't sure what he was called, and said, "This is Percy. Show him around."

Without even waiting for a reply, she left. Chiron started to say something to her, but she didn't listen and went out the door.

Percy jumped as Travis put an arm around him and said, "Wow, that's Annabeth Chase for you. Damn, she's scary."

"Uh, yeah." Percy said, "Who are you?"

Travis' smile had never left his face, but it seemed to broaden further as he said, "Travis Stoll. A fellow cyborg. Come meet the rest of us."

Without waiting for a reply, he half pushed Percy along to an obstacle course in the middle of the huge room where people were jumping over and under bars. "Hey guys," he said, "Meet Percy."

Those who were doing the obstacle course still kept at it, but Percy received a few nods. A short kid came up to him and said, "So, how was your quality time with Annabeth? I'm Michael, by the way, Michael Yew."

Percy thought he was young because he was short, almost two feet shorter than Percy. Of course, he could be genetically short, but then he wouldn't be walking around with such confidence. Olympus never discriminated against its own, but it had still made it clear, by the all-powerful unwritten law, that height was generally preferred. Michael had swagger in his stride, he had confidence, and Percy just couldn't imagine a proud and short Olympian.

He had forgotten Michael's question, who turned to Travis laughing, "He got a couple of screws loose or something?"

"Nah, just thinking." Percy smiled, "So what do you normally do around here?"

Michael shrugged. "When we're not out on missions or in here, we mostly hang out in our rooms or go to the movies."

"You have movies in here?" Percy asked incredulously. There hadn't been movies in decades. No one produced them anymore, and no one had the time to watch them. Even then, Percy remembered the few movies he did watch were more propaganda than anything. Muscular Olympians fighting against sneaky and scrawny Orthians. Michael smiled and said, "Yup. It helps that we've got a couple of technological geniuses here."

"I wouldn't call Leo a genius," another boy said with a slight scowl. He had grey eyes like Annabeth, exactly like Annabeth's. Percy noticed the size of the iris and the shape of the pupil were the same. "He's lucky he didn't end up blowing the whole thing up."

"Malcom, how long are you going to stay sore at Leo for?" Michael asked, "It's not like he meant to blow up your hand. It wasn't even attached." He turned to look up at Malcom, needing to step back a little since his head was directly level with Malcom's chest.

"I got banned from missions for a month," Malcom said, his frown deepening. Maybe Annabeth was the only one who had the expressionless kind of mask. Malcom seemed to have the frowny-face mask on a lot of the time, though. "I'm just saying that the kid shouldn't be able to run loose like that. What about that seeker drone he hooked up to the TV remote? He crashed it into a city."

"Well, it was an Orthian city," Michael said with a raised eyebrow, "So I don't see why you're complaining."

"When was the last time Beckendorf or Jake blew something up?" Malcom asked, "Leo's unpredictable."

Michael was starting to get stressed. His fists were clenched and he was frowning too. Percy wondered if everyone was good at frowning. Clarrise seemed to have stolen the frowny-face mask directly from Annabeth. In fact, the only kid he hadn't seen frown was Travis, who was standing next to him watching the argument with another smile.

"Beckendorf and Jake blow plenty of stuff up," Michael said, "you just don't see it because they're not as eager to test things in the real world." Malcom opened his mouth to speak but Michael cut him off. "We're supposed to be unpredictable. We're supposed to be irregular so Orthians don't cut off our heads like-" Michael cut himself off. His voice had risen to a shout, and Percy was amazed to see someone so short stand up to Malcom. It would be like a student standing up to a teacher.

Malcom's eyes were glinting dangerously and had stepped forward. Thankfully, Travis stepped between them, still smiling. "Come on, now, you guys are scaring Percy. You want to help me show Percy around?"

Michael shrugged and said, "Maybe next time. Not in the mood." He glared up at Malcom before stalking out the door. Malcom glared back at Michael, or rather, Malcom glared at Michael's back, and said, "Get Grover to do it if he needs more friends. Wasn't Grover supposed to look out for him in the first place?"

Travis smiled again, but stepped forward. "I'm taking that as a no, then."

Malcom raised an eyebrow at Travis, like he wanted to say _you think? _and then left in the opposite direction. It was only now that Percy realized there were several doors leading out of the room, more than seven. He supposed he should have been worried or put off by the unfriendliness of what he guessed were his teammates, but Percy was more interested in the monkey bars that were hanging over a pit of sludge and the climbing wall in another corner that leaked hot oil and was trying to shake a wiry looking girl off.

"Sorry about all that," Travis said, "We're all a little stressed."

"What happened?" Percy asked, "Is everyone always so stressed?"

"Not really," Travis said, "But there was just this mission that went wrong a week ago, and people are still trying to get over it."

Percy didn't know what to say for a moment, but he didn't have to. Another boy that looked to be around twenty came walking over. His eyes darted all over the place, but what drew Percy's attention was his unshaven beard and scruffy hair. Like Chiron's it was brown, but at least Chiron's had been well kept. This boy's hair looked completely chaotic and wild. If one of Percy's teachers saw it she'd have a fit.

"Hey, Grover." Travis said, waving the boy over. Grover came shuffling up to Percy. For some reason he wouldn't like Percy or Travis in the eye. "Hey. What is it?" His jerked his legs rhythmically, and he was either nervous or had ADD like Percy.

Travis nodded. "I've got some stuff to do for Chiron. I'll see you at dinner, okay?"

Grover nodded and seemed relieved for some reason. "Yeah, sure. Course I can." He beckoned to Percy to follow him. Percy wondered what modifications Grover had and asked, "Do you have metal arms and stuff?"

Grover looked up quickly and said, "Uh, you mean modifications and all that? Well, I was an early model, and my job doesn't really need me to have all those upgrades. I've got a tracker inside me, so you'll never be lost when you're with me." He looked away as if he was ashamed of something. Percy wondered why Grover seemed so scared of him.

Grover took him to what was obviously a firing range with stacks of guns lined up neatly on a rack that stretched along the whole side of one wall. "Not many people train here unless they're teaching," Grove said. "They like to test it out in more real life conditions."

"What do you mean?" Percy said, "Do they go out and shoot people?"

Grover shook his head vigourously. "No, no, no. They'd never do that. Well, they might do it in Orthian cities, but those are usually the jobs of the strikeforce."

Percy wondered who the strikeforce was, but was more interested in the fact that Orthus had cities. It was something the teachers had never really touched upon while they were teaching children.

_"Orthians live in squalour and filth," _they had said,_ "choosing to prey upon our superior nation out of jealousy and greed."_

Percy had raised his hand and asked why the Olympians hadn't beat the Orthians if they were that outmatched, but the teacher had merely glared at him and said, _"Orthians are treacherous and cunning. They have no shame and honour."_

And with that, the teacher had gone onto talk about the value of honour and integrity while living one's life. It had let quite well into how soldiers lived, and how even if (they refrained from saying when) they died on the frontlines, they should do it with dignity and showing respect to Olympus.

"So," Percy said, trying to concentrate on what Grover was saying, "Orthians have cities?"

Grover nodded. "Of course they do. They're a lot like the cities here, actually."

Percy was stunned for a bit, almost a few seconds, and he mulled that thought over. "So are there cyborgs like us on the Orthians' side?"

Grover flinched and again, he wouldn't look at Percy. "Um, no. They rely on genetic transformation and mutations. They're different."

Percy might have asked about something else, but Grover pulled him into a room with maps. Some were laid out on the table with figurines on them, while others were projected up onto a wall. There were two people sitting on either side of a large table, and one of them was Annabeth.

"They're playing tabletop games." Grover whispered, "War simulations. The strategists do it a lot to keep sharp." He turned to leave and Percy went along, asking, "Don't you want to watch?"

"Nah, why would we?" Grover asked, "It's not like we need to understand them. Besides, Annabeth will win."

"Does she always win?" Percy asked, "Is that what they changed about her?"

Grover frowned and looked away. "They changed her, yeah. We used to be good friends, but they changed that as well."

Percy was confused but didn't think about it too much. This whole place was larger than any other building Percy had been in before, but Percy still felt slightly suffocated. He liked being free, seeing the sky and being outside. "Can we go outside of this building?" Percy asked. Grover looked at him and said, "There isn't much upstairs. Just admin work that needs to be done, vehicles, and a forest we sometimes play games in. Nothing much."

Percy nodded, then wondered why Grover was so sad. It wasn't anger like Michael had, but Grover kept on glancing at Percy and then back to the floor again. One of those little details and distractions that kept Percy busy. Some might think about ways to coax the answer out of Grover, or to ask someone else. But Percy wasn't one of those people. "Hey, Grover, are you scared of me or something?"

Grover jumped so hard Percy thought he was going to hit the pipes that ran through the ceiling. Maybe they would be flooded in water. Percy liked the sound of that. Blue was his favourite colour after all. Blue, like the cookies his mom had made for him before she went _BANG! _Percy quickly made the effort to think of something else. At the moment, Grover seemed easiest to focus on. Her was looking at the pipes, at the floor, at Percy's feet and at his own, but not Percy's face.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Percy said quickly. Grover looked like the kids that the teachers called on and embarrassed in front of the whole class when they didn't know the answer.

_"What's wrong?", _they would say, _"The answer can't be so hard. Tell us." _

Well, Percy wouldn't stand there above Grover and say "_Oh, the answer can't be so hard." _He wouldn't go, "_tell us, tell us." _because that would be mean.

"Oh, thanks man," Grover said, sagging with relief. Percy thought he might dissolve into water and run down the smooth and seamless corridor forever. Instead, he just stood straighter and said, "Come on, I'll take you to your room."

Percy nodded and followed Grover again. They went down a few floors and ended up inside another room. It was big, almost as big as Percy's kitchen and bedroom combined. There was a large bed, an adjoining bathroom, drawers, and even a TV. Percy hadn't seen one in ages.

"It's pretty basic," Grover said, "But you can add more stuff to it as time goes on."

Percy's eyes widened. This was basic? It seemed unfair that they got all these luxuries when there were people on the streets who would kill, and probably had killed, for less. Like that man he had seen lying on the ground right outside his house yesterday. He had been wearing surprisingly nice shoes that were intact and seemed to be of good quality. His trousers hadn't been ripped or torn at all. Funny.

He turned around when Grover tapped him on the shoulder and held out a pamphlet. "I've got to go and do some stuff, but here's a map. I've circled the dining hall where we'll be gathering at seven and your room, so try and get there on time, okay?"

Percy nodded and Grover went out the door. Percy flopped down on his bed and thought about what had happened. He seemed disconnected from his old life, and he still didn't know what he was going to be doing.

_"Oh, the answer can't be so hard," _

What was going to happen? Percy didn't know, but he didn't really think about it. He tried to find distractions like he always did. How was he going to occupy himself in his own room for two hours? Suddenly, agreeing to let Grover leave him in his room seemed like a mistake.

* * *

**So, here's the next chapter. I just want to say thank you to the people who reviewed, it was more than my KH fic got on its first chapter. I really appreciate them.**


	3. Chapter 3

Percy was never the type to stay still. He should have told Grover, but it had slipped his mind at the time. He wasn't sure how long he'd lasted in his room before the temptation to explore outside. Maybe five minutes? Probably less. He'd had a watch when he had come back from school and taken out the trash that afternoon, but he guessed it had been blown off in the big explosion _(KABOOM!) _and now he couldn't tell the time. There had been a clock in his room on the drawer. A digital one with a black plastic casing. It wasn't that Percy was unobservant, it was just that the rate at which Percy processed information was far slower than the rate at which he took it in.

And now he was wandering among the corridors that were lined with pipes and underground. He had no idea where he was going, but he was just curious. There was a green pipe on the ceiling that Percy had chosen to follow. It had taken him up a set of stairs and through several doors until it disappeared into a wall. Then Percy heard a gurgling sound that always arose when someone flushed the toilet. He saw it reverberate through another pipe along the ceiling, and Percy decided to follow that.

He wondered briefly how big the facility was. Something in the back of his mind told him he'd walked at least a hundred metres, but Percy didn't pay attention to it. After that he promptly forgot it. Part of it was just his character, but much larger part was because he was face to face with a tall girl. She was lean and had the same expressionless mask that Annabeth always had. He wondered if there was a shop here that sold them. Apart from her mask, the girl was completely different. She had black hair and dark eyes with slightly tanned skin. She turned her head slowly and asked, "What are you doing here?"

Percy saw another similarity. Both Annabeth and the brown expressionless girl had voices that were hard. Like the concrete blocks that had made up his house before _KABOOM! _or the bricks that had cockroaches crawling through them every time Percy walked past them. Of course, those bricks might always break and become playthings for Percy in his wonderful fantasies and playworld of heroes and knights in shining armour.

Suddenly the girl surged forward and asked, "What are you doing here." Even though Percy was taller than her, he still stepped back, not wanting to get close to her tanned skin.

"I'm Percy." Percy quickly stammered out. "Who are you?" He quickly stepped back again until he was leaning against the wall, and was thankful that Reyna didn't follow.

"Reyna." Came the short reply. "What are you doing here?"

Percy was stumped. How could he explain _the itch_? The need that rose in him to do something. His urge to explore and see things, to satisfy his mind that craved distractions and took in details. It was something that couldn't be put into words. "I was just walking around."

It seemed weak and pointless when put into words, as if he was reducing himself when he brought himself back into reality. Reyna narrowed her eyes and said, "We've told you infiltrators to stay away from our living quarters unless we're working on missions together.

"Hey, no need to be so unfriendly," came a deeper voice. A young man walked out, even taller than Percy was. He was dark skinned and stood straight. He reminded Percy of a tie, the tie his dad always wore when he came back from work. Neat and proper and straight. But even though he stood straight like Reyna did, he didn't seem as brittle and hard. Reyna was forcing herself to stand straight, but this man seemed to have been born straight. Like he had stood, or floated, straight in the womb instead of in fetal position.

Maybe he had slid out of his mom straight and smooth, smiling that easy and relaxed smile, saying, _"Hello there. Nice to meet you, mom. Would it be terribly inconvenient if you cut off my umbilical cord?" _Percy smiled slightly at the mental image of a tall baby talking in his mothers' arms.

"I'm Carter," he said, extending his hand, "You've probably been told that we can get a little territorial over our living spaces. I'm assuming you haven't worked with us firsthand."

Percy reached out and shook hands. He had never understood why people had to shake hands when they first met. Was it saying that they trusted each other enough to touch each other? Percy had never trusted everyone he'd shaken hands with. He'd only ever truly trusted his mom, and they had never shaken hands. They had never needed to say that they trusted each other.

Suddenly Reyna suddenly poked at Percy's neck with and turned to Carter. "I think he's the new infiltrator. You know, Poseidon Jackson's son."

Carter frowned and peered at Percy's neck as well. "Who's your dad?"

Percy frowned. "Why do we have to talk about him?" He didn't want to talk about unpleasant things. They were so easy to ignore anyways. "What's an infiltrator?" He asked. It sounded like a fancy word his teachers would use. Words like _circumnavigate, _and _scrupulousness, _and _vilification _that were so nice to pronounce, even though Percy didn't know what they meant.

"An infiltrator is what they call your section of us half-bloods," Reyna said, "You spy and do more covert operations. We're the strikeforce. We're more like soldiers than you are."

Percy nodded, even though Reyna had been very vague. All this talk about missions and spying. What were they up to? Again, Percy didn't think about it. Like he didn't think about a lot of things. There wasn't any use in thinking about things that didn't need thinking about. Always better to think on the bright side or else his mind would just go in an endless circle. "What's a half blood?"  
"Just what we call ourselves." Carter said, "I think it was Chiron's little joke. We're half-flesh half-metal, and it somehow morphed into our current little euphemism." A euphemism. Such a long word, like infiltrator. Percy wondered if anyone might be offended. Olympians emphasized purity of blood, it was another one of those unwritten rules. People who were descended from pure Olympians were held in higher regard than people descended from countries Olympus had conquered. Like Percy. His mom and his dad were both descended from Olympus. But people who had ancestors from different countries like Corinth or Delphi had never gotten into high positions.

Carter and Reyna were looking at him, as if they expected him to ask some more, and Percy wondered when they had been brought in, and if it had taken a KABOOM_!_to unhinge them from their ordinary life. "So how long have you been working here? And what do you do?"

"I've been here for seven years now, since I was eleven." Carter said, "Come on, I'll take you to the dining hall. There's just one for all of us, so you'll be able to find your friends."

"Didn't you have to report back to Sadie?" Reyna asked pointedly. Carter winced and rolled his eyes. "It was just cleaning up. Not that it would have been necessary if some of us were with them." His voice turned bitter and sad.

"Regardless," Reyna said, "You need to report to Sadie now. I'll give the new half-blood some directions."

Carter hesitated and nodded, "See you later, Percy Jackson. It's a nice name."

Percy wondered if Carter would always address him including his last name, but then Reyna started talking. "The nearest staircase is on the second left down that way." Percy looked at Carter as he walked off. His hands were swinging by his side, relaxed. He didn't have them in his pockets like Malcom or Michael did. He didn't have them folded across his chest like Reyna did as she was talking to him. He supposed he should have been listening, but phrases like _turn right until you see the toilets, _or _go down two flights of stairs _just refused to stay in his brain.

Reyna then turned and left, leaving Percy staring at her in confusion. After standing there for a bit, he decided to backtrack. The corridors seemed to be the same wherever he went. It was like the people who built it had decided to be confusing on purpose. Or maybe because they made the building to be _uniform and orderly._

That was another one of Olympus' ideals. _Order and uniformity. _It had meant that everything had to be the same so that it could be managed easily. Percy guessed it made sense. It was like how his mom made cookies the same from the same mold. It was quicker and they tasted just as good, no matter if they were star shaped or triangle shaped.

Of course, if a cookie was already a star shape, it was hard to make it a circle shape. Too bad there wasn't a mold inside his mom that could shape him and make him all circle shaped. It would have been a lot easier in school. He wouldn't have noticed things, wouldn't have had teachers come down to his level and give him _a little talk._

But he wouldn't have noticed things like the way the clock hands always touched each other once every hour. He wouldn't have noticed how his mom always smiled differently every time Percy saw her. Sometimes her eyes would crinkle differently, or maybe she'd be doing something different and have her hands busy as she turned her neck. Sometimes she'd stand on her toes and hug him. And sometimes she would tell him to go take out the trash and he would never see her again.

Percy felt himself crying, felt the itch turn into a burning that started in his chest and ran across his spine and out through his mouth and his eyes. Out and short gasps and small tears as the burning made him shiver over and over again as he doubled over.

He fell against the wall and he felt pain shoot up down his arm and through his body as his shoulder clanked against the wall. He looked down at his new metallic limb all covered in black. He had forgotten that his flesh was gone, burnt off in the big _KABOOM! _along with his mom. He held the arm up to the light and stared at it. There was a small groove in his arm that had allowed Annabeth to poke something into him. There was also an opening for something that looked like it could connect to one of the computers his dad would sometimes bring with him from work. Apart from that, it seemed like a normal arm to him.

He examined his left arm that seemed exactly the same as his right one, except there was a small protrusion in his left bicep. It was like a bump that he got when he ran into a wall and banged his head. It had hurt, and it had burst with blood leaking out, and he had felt the burning sensation that he was feeling now. It started in his chest and worked its way out through his mouth in the form of sobs and his eyes in the form of tears.

His teachers had, of course, taken him to the hospital, and given him _the little talk _that he had to be more careful for the good of Olympus. The swelling had gone down soon enough, and he no longer had to wear a white bandage on top of his head.

Maybe this swelling would go down after time. Or maybe it could go away now. It wasn't leaking blood, and it didn't even hurt when Percy poked at it. He tweaked at it a bit, and it twisted a little. He tweaked at it again harder and this time he felt the protrusion bend. His fingers clenched harder and suddenly the protrusion broke, shattering under his fingers. He was surprised. It looked to be made out of hard plastic, the kind windows and doors were made of. It must have been brittle if Percy was able to just break it with his hands.

But then he didn't think about that anymore because the burning sensation that normally started in his chest now started in his arm shot up and stabbed him in the head. It fought to get out of him, and burst out from him in a moan. He was burning and fire was leaving his mouth as he moaned and clawed the walls. He tried to stand up, but his legs were shaking with fire and it seemed like the bones in his legs weren't holding him up. Then he remembered that he didn't have bones in one of his legs and he laughed hysterically.

It was like the big _KABOOM _again, except that this _KABOOM _was starting inside him and worming its way out slowly. He was sweating all over as the burning stabbed him over and over in the head, like there were lumps coming out of his head and stretching his skull like he had stretched putty when he was a kid. Digging his fingers in enthusiastically and pulling it apart with delight. Seeing his fingers break through the putty and wiggling them while giggling.

Percy giggled then as his fingers clawed into the walls like they had clawed into the putty. He scratched the walls as he writhed there, and he could only think, _at least the walls won't all be the same. _He could feel the floor thumping and thumping, and at first he thought it was him. But then he felt arms pick him up and start dragging him somewhere.

He was sweating fire, squeezing out the burning within him with all his fluids. His limbs spasmed and trembled but he wasn't put back down on the ground, for which he was grateful. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, so out of time and random. When he walked, there was a rhythm. When he hugged his mom, there was a rhythm. But when fire was escaping him there was no rhythm. Just one long beat. Almost like the big _KABOOM_ that was one short beat. One blink and goodbye mom. Goodbye everything. And all he had done was take out the trash.

Suddenly the fire was stopping. He was still sweating, but now he could see past his tears. Tears always stopped him from seeing, because anything he set his eyes on would refract and reflect off the small globules of clear liquid. But now he wasn't, and he could see Annabeth standing above him clearly. She had the expressionless mask that she always did, and her grey eyes stared down at Percy passively. "You were an idiot."

"Where am I?" Percy asked. He looked around and saw that he was looking up at the same white ceiling as yesterday. Or the first time he had woken up in this place. He couldn't tell the time.

"Do you usually go around trying to break your limbs?" Annabeth said passively, "That was your supply of morphine and other drugs that regulated your brain. Your body's in a lot of pain right now, but we needed you to get used to your body quickly."

Percy wasn't restrained this time and he sat up, taking a look at his arm. There was another lump on his arm now, and this time Percy knew that it was leaking things out. Not blood or dirt or pus, but pristine and clinical drugs that doused the burning inside him. Annabeth leaned over him and brought her face in close so all Percy could see was her hard face and grey eyes. "Listen. That lump is supplying you with painkillers. Your body's still in a lot of pain, but we need you to get used to your body quickly."

Percy nodded. It was easier to concentrate when there was someone speaking right in front of him. The lump wasn't like the ones he had sustained when he had bumped his head. Those had been leaking things out, not in. Percy made to get off the bed, and he staggered, his leg not able to support his weight. Annabeth didn't try and help him which Percy was grateful for. He could at least stand by himself. He got up again, and this time he stayed on his feet. His vision seemed to fade as he got the usual sensation of blood rushing to his head, but it soon went away. Everything went away in the end. His thoughts that never stayed in one place, food, teachers, and even his mom. Percy quickly made that depressing thought go away and started following Annabeth, who had opened the door and was walking out. "Dinner's ready now. I suggest you get used to eating again. You'll need it later."

Percy's stomach rumbled, as if on cue, and he followed Annabeth eagerly through all of the corridors that looked exactly the same. Percy noticed that they were going in the same direction as they had when Annabeth took him to the huge room where everyone was training when Annabeth bumped into Grover, who was coming around the corner. "I was looking for Percy," he started, but he stopped talking when he saw Percy walking behind Annabeth with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh," he mumbled. "Are you okay?"

Percy nodded. "Why were you looking for me?"

"You just weren't at the dining hall." Grover said. Percy nodded and wondered what the food would be like. It would be too much to hope for blue cookies, but maybe there was something there that was equally delicious.

Annabeth held her gaze at Grover, causing him to look away and take a step back. Then he left towards the dining hall, followed by Annabeth and Percy. Grover was acting like the students in Percy's class who didn't know the answer and refused to meet the teacher's gaze. The teacher would cock her head and smile malevolently. _Come on, the answer can't be that hard._

Grover wasn't looking at them in the same way. It was like there was a question that he didn't want to be asked, a question that he couldn't answer. The thing was, Percy didn't know what the question Grover didn't want them to ask was. Did Annabeth know? There was something in the way Annabeth had kept looking at him for a moment that made him quickly turn around. Maybe that was how Annabeth's grey eyes had been modified, they could make someone scared just by looking at them. Maybe they had taken all the white and red out of her and filled her eyes with grey that could instantly make anyone who looked at it scared. Maybe they had taken out all her red and white blood cells and replaced them with grey ones of steel that ran through her whole body and strengthened it. Maybe her blood was grey, and if she were cut, quicksilver would run out of her wounds.

What Percy noticed first when they arrived into the dining hall was the noise. It wasn't particularly noisy, but Percy hadn't heard so many people talk at once in a long time. His school was quiet as they put their heads down studying Olympian geography and memorizing the Olympian Code that each of them had to abide by.

But in this dining hall people talked. They went to a counter to get steaming food and went back to long tables where they actually talked freely. Percy even saw one or two of them laugh. Annabeth nudged him over to the counter where they got plates and held them out for food. They got rice and some meat slopped onto their plates, and Percy's stomach grumbled appreciatively. He just realized that he probably hadn't eaten in a long time. "How long has it been since I came here?" he asked Annabeth.

"We found you on the evening of the twentieth of October." Annabeth said mechanically, "It's the evening of the twenty-third now."

Percy nodded slowly. So it had been three days. Three days ago his body had been whole. Now his arms and legs were black with lumps on them that stopped the fire burning within. What would happen after that? What would happen in three weeks. Would they suck out the red and white inside him and fill it up with grey?

He almost dropped his plate when Annabeth shook him. "You need to stop zoning out or you could get killed."

Percy nodded and went to the table she gestured to, and sat down with Annabeth on his left and Grover on his right. He noticed Carter eating a few tables opposite in between two other dark-skinned girls. Carter was eating naturally without spilling anything. He looked up and caught Percy's eye, giving him a nod before going back to his conversation.

"Hey, Percy," Grover said, "It looked like Carter knew you." He was sitting on the edge of his seat and looked a little nervous. Percy noticed, but didn't quite use, the fact that Annabeth was listening intently.

Percy finished swallowing his mouthful of rice and said, "Yeah. I went walking after you left me in my room and met him and Reyna."

Grover looked at Annabeth who just shrugged and went back to eating. They were interrupted by two Travises. Or at least, that was what they seemed like. They had been eating a few seats beside Percy and now slid next to him.

"What's this about you knowing Carter?" One of the Travises asked. He stuck out a hand and said, "I'm Connor, by the way. Nice to meet you." Percy nodded slowly and looked at the blue eyes that Connor-who-wasn't-Travis were using to stare at Percy. It might have made some people uncomfortable, but Percy was used to getting stared at. It normally happened whenever his teachers smiled at him and took him out _for a little talk. _But Connor's stare didn't seem bad. When the teachers stared at him, it was like they were trying to figure out how to mold him from a star shape to a circle shape without melting him down, because that would take too much trouble. Connor's stare was like he was trying to understand Percy so he could be Percy's friend. It was new to Percy, but he felt like he understood Connor immediately.

So, Percy told Connor, and by extension Travis, Grover and Annabeth about his little trip into Reyna and Carters' territory. He didn't make the best storyteller. He always went off tangent and noticing new things about the situation, like how both Reyna and Carter was wearing a purple T-shirt, or how Reyna had a slight limp in her right leg. But Connor kept on nodding and laughing and asking questions. Travis was talking with Grover about something else, while Annabeth was methodically eating her food.

When he had finished talking, Percy stopped to drink from a cup of water while Connor smiled at him. "So, do you have any questions?"

Percy was surprised. No one ever asked him to talk more. They would usually just listen and nod, then forget everything Percy said as quickly as Percy himself did. When Connor asked the question, it surprised Percy so much that his brain stopped noticing things for a moment. Then Percy asked, "Are we infiltrators?"

Connor raised an eyebrow and said, "I wasn't expecting that one. Well, yes, we are. And Carter's part of the strikeforce."

Percy nodded. There was something about talking that made him focus. When he talked, he it was like he was ordering his thoughts into a concrete road, like his thoughts were bubbling asphalt that spat out globules of incoherent messes, and talking helped him lay it out flat, for others to see and understand.

"Did you lose your parents?" Percy asked. Grover choked on his piece of meat that he was eating, and Connor raised his eyebrows before putting on a smile again. "Are you sure you don't have any questions about what your missions will be?"

Percy thought about it and said, "Well, won't I be told if I do have to go?" Connor shrugged and Percy went on, "Besides, what's so special about me? Are you sending me on missions just because of my dad?"

Connor shook his head and leaned in conspiratorially. Percy leaned in as well while Annabeth kept on eating as if the conversation bored her. "It's not just because of Poseidon that we involved you in all of this. It's because of his work."

Connor had said the wrong thing. Percy didn't like to think about his dad, and definitely didn't like to think that he was always _at work. _My wife's been blown up in a huge _KABOOM! _and I'm _at work. _My son's limbs have been replaced with lumps to quench a fire in him, and I'm _at work. _Percy realized his fists were clenched around his spoon and he let go of it. The metal spoon had bent, molding itself so that it could be held perfectly by Percy, provided he used a clenched fist to eat.

Connor had cocked his head and asked, "You okay? Do you want me to keep on going?"

Percy nodded. Suddenly he could concentrate on what Connor was saying. It seemed so easy to remember the sounds Connor's moving jaw was making. Up and down, up and down. "Your dad's work was the design of a new cyborg. The new design can breathe underwater and gain strength from any surrounding liquids. You can probably tell why it's so important."

Percy nodded. Orthus was more water than land, islands stuck in the sea. Being able to swim and breathe underwater would be like having a cyborg that could fly. Percy wondered what it would be to fly over Olympus and see all the green and fertile lands. See the war between the Olympians and Orthians as they shot at each other across the long coastline of Olympus.

"When your dad found out you were almost dying," Connor was saying, "He made us implement the prototype inside you." It was getting harder to concentrate now. Thoughts of flying unrestricted across the vast country was too enticing for Connor's voice to hold him.

"So," Percy said, trying to concentrate again and lay out the bubbling tar in his mind out smoothly, "I can swim?"

Connor laughed easily and said, "Yeah. You can." Travis leaned in closer and asked, "Scared?"

Travis and Connor were so similar. Not just the way their brown hair grew the same way, or the way their cheekbones were raised at the same angle, but in the way their blue eyes seemed to draw out answers from Percy. Percy wanted to talk to them, not just because they helped him concentrate, but because Percy felt safe telling them things.

"I've always wanted to swim." he said eagerly, "I always thought it was cool. Like flying."

Travis and Connor both leaned back with eyes glittering in interest. "Well, good talking to you, Percy. We're done with dinner now, so have fun." With that, they both got up at the same time and took their plate away. Percy looked at Grover, who was staring at him with wide eyes. Annabeth's expression hadn't changed, but Percy saw that her plate was empty, and had been for a while. Percy slumped down and was suddenly tired. All the bubbling thoughts that normally spat things out at random had cooled, and Percy couldn't think of much at all. He felt drained and just wanted to go to bed.

Annabeth had picked up on that, because she stood up and said, "You need rest. Get some this time." She led him to a row of trays where she and Percy slid their plates in. Walking back to his room with Annabeth, he didn't think as quickly as he used to. He noticed how Grover kept on avoiding his gaze as always, but no random thoughts that his teachers always disapproved of. How ironic that he had started to become a good Olympian. Maybe one purpose of getting modifications, as Annabeth had put it, was to insert some Olympian in them. Maybe Annabeth hadn't been scary and had feelings before they took out her eyes and injected grey to replace red and white. Maybe the black arms and leg that Percy was now wearing would become a real part of him and he would become hard and cold with lumps and protrusions that did unthinkable things.

As usual, Annabeth shook him to get him out of his thoughts. "Stay here this time. I don't want to stick a tracking device in your arm. Go to sleep."

Percy nodded and went into his room, flopping down on his bed. Grover looked at him for a moment, started to open his mouth, but stopped. Instead, he walked away with Annabeth after closing the door, leaving Percy to lie on the bed until he fell asleep.

* * *

**Yes, I know this chapter took a while. When I updated the first two chapters I was on Chinese New Year. For those of you that don't know, that's a holiday that gives me a week off. So I could update quickly. Now, I don't have a week off, so I can't update quickly.**

**Plus, this chapter was a little harder to write. We've gotten past the first bit, but there's still a lot to do before we get to the action bits that I want to.**

**Anyways, hope you liked that chapter.**


	4. Of masks and Fire-breathing Half-Bloods

Three days. seventy two hours. Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. Twenty five thousand nine hundred and twenty seconds. Over twenty five thousand little ticks of a new watch Percy had gotten from Annabeth the day after he had met Carter and Reyna. Grover had been watching as she had sarcastically asked if he knew how to tell the time, and had then tagged along as Annabeth took him for training.

Not the type of trains that ran through the cities across the huge expanses of Olympus, not the kind that only transported soldiers or supplies, the type of training that meant practice, doing things over and over again.

Percy found it easier to focus with Annabeth, and the way she would talk tersely and to the point and make things easy to understand. And then she'd stop talking, and Percy would focus on Grover for a moment. He had nice shoes, like the ones belonging to the unconscious man the day the big _KABOOM _had happened and blown him all the way to this underground base. He had mumbled a lot when Percy looked at him, and hadn't spoken up when they ate meat and rice in the dining hall.

Percy had been introduced to Leo the next day. Well, introduced wasn't the right word. According to his teachers, an introduction was _a formal presentation of one person to another, in which each is told the other's name. _Percy hadn't been told Leo's name at first. When he had first entered Leo's lab, he had gotten blinded by a bright explosion.

"Whoops," Leo had said, taking off huge goggles that covered his eyes, nose, and part of his bushy hair. Once Percy had gotten has vision back and hadn't just seen white all over, he had stared at the mass of hair for a few seconds. Percy's hair had always been kept a certain length above his eyebrows, and his mom had always cut it so that it was neat and conforming to school policy. Leo's was the opposite. It was like his hair had been caught in a huge explosion too.

Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. An eternal explosion caught on top of Leo's black hair.

Percy had started stumbling forward, but Annabeth gripped his thick shoulder tightly. Her fingers were thin, but that just made them more painful as they sank into his flesh. Maybe bits of wood had sunk into his flesh as he had been blown back by the _big _kaboom. Not a small one like Leo's hair, or the one that had just blinded him, but the _big _one.

"Oh, Annabeth. Hey, really sorry about that." Leo was tapping his hands nervously on his legs. _(tip-tap tippity tap)_ "Hope you're okay."

"Of course I am," Annabeth said, "My eyes don't react strongly to harsh changes in light." Percy's eyes were beginning to adjust, and he could make out Leo's brown skin and black hair. His face had red imprints pressed into them while his face outside the red goggle imprints were charred black. The skin around his ears were peeling off, and they looked red. Not as red as blood, but a pinkish red like a newborn baby. Not that Percy had ever seen a newborn baby, but his mom had talked about it enough for him to imagine him bursting out of her stomach.

Annabeth shook him and he quickly concentrated on Leo again, who was saying, "Man, I keep on telling Chiron to get me cheaper metals so they won't cost us so much when I blow stuff up, but does he listen?"

He sighed, then looked at Percy. "You're Poseidon's son, right? Heard a lot about you. You got super powers that let you breathe underwater like they say?"

Percy blinked and said, "I haven't really tested it yet."

"Seriously, Annabeth?" Leo asked incredulously, "We've got the most important cyborg right here, right now, and you haven't taken him for testing?"

Annabeth's grey eyes were like steel rods that pushed Leo's words back down his throat. She looked at him as if she was bored, but Leo immediately changed subjects. "Anyways, you brought Percy here for the normal check up, right?"

Annabeth nodded. "I want to make sure he's prepared for the recoil of a gun."

Leo nodded. "What type? Because guns are different, different weights, different feels, diff-" Annabeth cut him off and dragged Percy forward first by the black arm. "Make sure that his joints won't jam or anything. Nothing fancy. I'll be back for him in an hour."

"Right, got it." Leo said, "So, let's see your arm. Pretty standard model, guess Poseidon didn't pay attention to your arms too much. Or maybe he's working on upgrades right now."

Percy nodded and asked, "So what are your upgrades?"

"Me?" Leo asked, "Who said I had upgrades? I upgrade upgrades." Percy must have looked confused, because Leo went on, "If they want a scope built into your forearm, they come to me. If you want super cool lasers built into your fingertips, they come to me. If they want flamethrowers built into their mouths to breathe fire, well, we're working on that, but once we get firebreathing cyborgs, there won't be anything stopping us from winning."

Percy was able to concentrate on that, even if it was just because of the mental images that Leo's words were evoking. He imagined running around with lasers coming out of his eyes and burning holes in everything he looked at. Maybe his eyes would be red, like Annabeth's were grey.

"Anyways, that comes later. You look like the kind of guy who likes things simple. Maybe I'll just put a little pistol that retracts into your kneecap. How'd you like that?"

"Um, what did Annabeth bring me here for?" Percy was able to keep up with Leo, and enjoyed being around this boy with a huge head of hair and skin that was browner than the wooden desks Percy would fidget behind. Leo's mind moved like Percy's did, and he felt like Leo understood what it was like to be distracted, to have that _itch. _It was obvious in the way he twirled a spanner expertly between his thin hands, and the way he would tap out a rhythm on the wall with his chipped fingernails. _(tippity-tap, tippity-tap) _There was an _itch _in Leo that he'd learnt to use.

"Come here." Leo beckoned Percy to follow him past a load of drills and hammers and different coils of twisted wires. Percy's brain was going into overload, processing everything at once, from the dull roar of a furnace to other assistants that had their faces hidden behind helmets or goggles.

Leo opened the door into a cleaner room with an operating table in the middle. "Now, I know how it looks," he said, "But I'm not going to take your organs. I need to take apart your arm to make sure it's functioning fine."

"Don't worry." Leo cut Percy off as his green eyes widened. Leo's smile hadn't once shifted from his face and he twiddled a syringe between his long fingers. The spanner he had initially been fiddling with had somehow vanished. Leo gestured onto the table and Percy reluctantly lay down.

"I'm not going to bother with straps." Leo said, "Just don't jerk your arm or anything, wouldn't do to have your interior filament chip getting lost in this place. Man, that was a real pain to deal with. Jason had to walk around with a dud arm for a week before I could fix it. Never blamed me for it, though, can't say the same for Reyna and Octavian."

Percy remembered Reyna and Carter from a few days ago, but hadn't met Octavian. "Who's Octavian?" He asked. As he did, he felt a short stab as Leo stabbed the syringe into his collarbone. "Normally we'd inject you through your arm, but since we just need to nullify pain below the shoulder, we can use a cheaper drug."

Percy nodded, not minding the quick change of subject. "Where do you get the drugs? My school never had any."

"We've got connections." Leo said, "Besides, success pays off. We couldn't have been this picky half a decade ago, but the war cabinet sees our value, and pretty much gets us what we want."

Percy's arm started feeling numb, and his mind started to slow down. At the very least, he was able to remember one of his previous questions. "So who's Octavian?"

"Just this guy from the Strikeforce." Leo said. He had picked up a screwdriver and was doing something with Percy's arm. Percy tried to tilt his head up to see, but he couldn't find the strength. His neck was limp and all he could do was stare at the black ceiling. Not being able to see what Leo was doing, he contented himself with asking, "Do all of the Strikeforce not like you?"

Leo laughed, though his arms stayed steady, and said, "Lot's of people don't like me. Too smart for them to handle, you know? But some members of the Strikeforce don't like us Infiltrators, and vice versa."

A small hook somehow seemed to appear from his hand, like he'd had it up his sleeve, and was inserting itself deep into Percy's arm. "Of course, that's just some people," Leo said, "Look at Jason and Piper, they've been together for three months and seem to be going well. No deaths, no fights, no abuse, no nothing. I'm happy for them. They deserve it. They-" Leo opened his mouth again, but closed it again, working on Percy's other arm with renewed vigour.

Leo's tongue was now sticking out as he fiddled with Percy's arm some more, and Percy thought it made him seem more childish. He wondered how old everyone here was, and it only occurred to Percy now that everyone he had met except for Chiron was young but looked old. It was like all of them had a _mask_ that said they were adults. A _mask _that they had built themselves, a _mask _that they had crafted to fit their faces perfectly.

Some people like Annabeth had an expressionless _mask_. The mask that hid her from the vision of others. Reyna had that kind of _mask_ too. But everyone had a grownup _mask. _The grownup _mask _that made their eyes more tired but made their faces harder, like they could make decisions that most people couldn't. He wondered how they made these _masks _that were constructed from skin and flesh instead of clay and plastic.

But when Leo was with his gadgets, handling inventions, fiddling with peoples' arms, it was like his _mask _came off and he was a child again. The way his tongue stuck out made him seem more human and less metal.

"How old are you?" Percy asked. Leo glanced up at him for a moment before saying, "I'm fifteen. Been here for a while now. I came with Jason and Piper, you know?"

Percy nodded. He felt like there were a lot of things being said that he should have been piecing together. Maybe it was the tense way Michael and Malcom were looking at each other, or if it was just Grover who couldn't even look at him, but Percy felt like he was missing something that he should be piecing together. Annabeth could probably piece it together. She would just look at the pieces with her grey steely eyes, and she would know exactly what had happened.

"Grover said he knew Annabeth for a long time." Percy said. Leo looked at Percy, and his grownup _mask _came on quickly. "What else did Grover tell you? He doesn't usually talk much." Percy thought for a bit and tried to remember what Grover had been saying, but Leo kept on talking. "I've known him for a while now. He was here before me, and even then he'd been here for a while. He was my first job, you know? I was working next to Beckendorf and I needed to replace Grover's tracker."

Leo went on to talk about the complexities of Grover's malfunctioning chip, but Percy had lost interest. Again. But before he had time to think for long, Leo tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Done. All your limbs are fine. You could get shot and you could still punch someone."

Percy nodded and got up. Leo was still talking, but Percy didn't hear much of it.

Later on in the day, or maybe it had been the next, Annabeth had taken him to fire guns. He had only seen them on a blackboard, all flat and in white and black. Annabeth had told him what to do, which switches to flick in order to make them work. But Percy had been scared. He had dropped the gun when he had first fired it and heard the huge _BANG _that came from the sound. Was it an oversized gun that had taken his mom away from him? He didn't know, he hadn't seen anything.

Annabeth had said something about _recoil _and _momentum transference, _but Percy hadn't been listening. He had just been looking at the gun in his hand, and froze there. Scared.

"What's wrong?" Annabeth had shaken him while keeping that _mask _on. The _mask _that hid her from everyone and allowed her to see everything.

Percy had just shrugged and shook his head. He wanted to leave this place. This place of explosions and deaths. How many Orthians had they killed? It wasn't fair for them to have so much power. It just wasn't.

Annabeth had cocked her head and asked, "Is your arm hurting?" Without asking, she ran her fingers mechanically over Percy's arm. She spun him around and checked the elbow and the connections next to his shoulder and armpit.

Percy quickly jerked away and mumbled, "I'm fine. It's just, it doesn't seem right."

"What doesn't seem right?" Annabeth asked. "We're supposed to be attacking Orthians."

Percy never knew what Annabeth was thinking. He just couldn't understand her. Couldn't understand anyone here. Why was Grover acting like he was supposed to answer some unasked question? This place did things to the people here and made them into something else. Percy was scared.

"Perhaps we should concentrate on his aquatic abilities." Chiron had said. He had wheeled himself in as Percy had shot his first bullet, and was now making his way towards Annabeth and Percy.

Annabeth shrugged and then said, "Alright then." She beckoned to Percy and he followed her down some more corridors. "Grover said the two of you used to be friends."

Annabeth didn't stop and didn't say anything. She just kept on walking with her shoulders slightly raised. Percy waited for her to say something, then continued, "Did Leo come here with Piper and Jason?"

This time Annabeth answered him. "Yes." But she didn't elaborate anything. Maybe her _mask _was covering her mouth, making it harder for her to speak.

"Do you like the Strikeforce?" Percy asked again. By now they were in front of a lift, and when it opened, Carter and another girl walked past them. Carter nodded to both Annabeth and Percy respectfully before heading in the opposite direction of the lift. Annabeth waited until they were in the lift and heading downwards before saying, "I don't hold any unjustified grudges against anyone."

Percy supposed that was her fancy way of saying no. As the lift stopped at another floor, Annabeth commented, "For someone so absent minded, you've remembered a lot of information."

"I guess because it's interesting." Percy said absently. He was staring at the buttons on the lift, realizing that there were twelve floors. "That and people talk clearly."

"You're talking more clearly as well." Annabeth walked out as Percy was still processing the comment and didn't slow down as Percy hurried after her. Percy almost tripped over his own feet in his rush, and his leg didn't respond as quickly as it once did. He fell on his metal knee, and instantly felt a huge stab of pain travel from his thigh to his chest to his ear. He fell on the ground again as his heart started trying to break his ribs, like his heart was trying to shoot its way out of his chest with a huge _BANG _and his head started throbbing again.

Annabeth had quickly rushed over and was holding him up, fiddling with his knee. Percy watched in gross detachment as she popped open a compartment on his thigh and looked at it, picking at some of the wires and fibers within.

Annabeth was saying something, but Percy couldn't concentrate until Annabeth grabbed his face and looked at him closely. Percy could concentrate on those grey eyes that were constant and steely and hard and unfathomable. They didn't reveal anything, and Percy could look at them trying to reason what Annabeth was thinking.

"This is normal." Annabeth was saying, "Your legs are still adjusting, and you need to remember that you have drugs in your system to dull the pain."

Percy nodded and tried to get back on his feet, but they buckled. They always buckled and trembled and shook. And the shaking from his legs made its way into his chest where his heart started to shake and try to escape from his chest like it was doing now.

The two of them limped forwards, Percy leaning on Annabeth's bony shoulder. He was always surprised that Annabeth could always support him, even though he was obviously heavier than she was. They made their way through more doors in bland corridors until they made their way to a huge bathtub.

Or at least, that was what it looked like to Percy. He saw the words _pool _written on the opposite side, and was amazed at the sheer amount of water in the area. It was bigger than Percy's apartment, and seemed to be deeper as well. He could see some people swimming in it, seeming to fly through the water, hovering over the bottom. Some wore black suits with black cylinders on their backs, as if getting cylinders were their modification. Others were hardly wearing any clothes at all, just swimming back and forth on the top.

Percy had never seen so much water in one place. This was Olympus, the land of earth, could it really be true that there was a small ocean inside their country? Percy's mind was going into overdrive, like a car that was overheating after suddenly going faster. He saw people somersaulting and pushing off walls, and saw poles and other obstacles that were floating in the water. Some of them were moving in synchronization and were coming up for air while shooting at floating targets that were supported by wires.

"Want to get in there?" Annabeth asked. "You said you always wanted to swim."

Percy nodded eagerly and jumped in.

He had had his mouth open in amazement when he had jumped in, which was a mistake. Water flowed his mouth and he started to cough, pushing up for air. It was only then that he realized he didn't know how to swim. No one did really, since there was never any need to. Where would he find water in Olympus? But now there was water, plenty of it, and he realized he couldn't swim. He thrashed around, splashing water all over the place, but he realized he was just swallowing more and more water. He started to sink as his arms grew tired and the water seemed to hug him. Almost like how his mom would hug him, except for the fact that he could breathe if his mom did hug him.

Suddenly he realized he could. He could breathe. He was swallowing water and breathing. He was gasping in panic underwater. He was floating and sinking underwater. It didn't make sense. There was that tight feeling in his stomach that always came when he held his breath. Only he wasn't holding his breath. He was breathing quickly and his arms were tense as they flailed about in the water. It was still amazing. He couldn't see anything except for vague shapes, and his eyes were stinging from the water that sometimes made their way past his eyelids. Maybe eyelids were like masks to the eyes, and they closed off and hid eyes from the outside world. Maybe there was always something, like water, that would seep in through the mask and sting and stab at the eyes behind them.

But then his eyes focused, and he suddenly saw everything as clearly as if he was on dry land. He could see figures swimming and twisting along the bottom of the pool on the other side.

Realizing he had reached the bottom, and kicked off the hard tiles to jump out of the water. He was laughing as he sprayed Annabeth's shirt with droplets of water as he surfaced. "Are you going to come in?" He laughed as he bobbed up and down. He had never been taught how to tread water, but found it coming naturally to him. Spread and kick, spread and kick. It was all in the legs. Spread and kick.

"I don't like getting my clothes wet." Annabeth said. Her lips didn't even twitch, and her stance didn't change, even though Percy was laughing more than he could ever remember. He didn't remember a lot, so it wasn't saying much, but he was happy.

Percy shrugged and then dived back down. He realized that he was kicking his legs and swinging his arms methodically, as if he had already knew how to fly through the water. Percy started spinning around and around, and he lost sense of direction and orientation. Where was up, where was down? Down was always where his feet hit the ground, but now he had his hands on the floor and his feet pointing towards the air. There was no up, no down, no left, no right, no then, no now, no right, no wrong, just him and the water, him and the peace, him and his home, where he would think and notice and be by himself.

He didn't know how long he floated there, and he didn't care either. Just something else he didn't notice. But he was noticing things all around him. His mind was clear, so clear, like the water he could see through. He had never swam before, so he didn't know that most people needed goggles to see. He just knew that he could see clearly as if he was in the air. The next day, he had looked in the mirror and noticed that his eyes, which had once been dark brown, were now a brilliant green.

Finally, he broke into the surface and started breathing air again. It was novel and seemed new to him for a moment, as if he was more at home in the water than he was on land. He turned at the sound of steady clapping, and looked up at Travis, who was sitting with his legs in the water. Beads of water dripped down his bare chest, and Percy saw bits of metal sticking out of Travis' elbows, marring his skinny frame. They shone and glittered under the bright lamps of the pool as he asked, "So, how do you like your dad's little gift?"

Percy cocked his head and asked, "What do you mean? What does my dad have anything to do with this?"

Travis laughed and said in a lyrical drawl, "That technology inside you is your dad's work. Wanna know why your bright green eyes are let you see through the water? Wanna know how your limbs are programmed to help you swim? Wanna know why those little slits on your neck let you breath in the water? Ask your dad."

Percy frowned up at Travis and thought. Was this his dad's _work _that kept him away for so long? Could he never be home for Percy because he was doing all of this? Was this his way of loving Percy?

_Percy, love is complicated, _his mom had said, _everyone has their own way of expressing it._

Of course. This had to be what his dad's love was: helping him with metal limbs, and saving him even though he wasn't there. That was what love had to be, right? Percy smiled happily as visions of his dad's love came over him. Poseidon staying up and delicately working over the construction of his gooey eyes, Poseidon bringing together metal fibres and metal spars together and meshing them in a hot flame to build his arms. He felt happy at this obvious act of love Poseidon had obviously been giving to him from afar.

Travis had been looking at him with a smile, and Percy just shrugged, not knowing what to say. Travis ran his hand through wet hair, and again Percy could see a metal shine from his elbow. "Want to come swim some more?" Travis asked.

Percy nodded, and Travis slipped in the pool. "There's an obstacle course down on the bottom in case you didn't notice. Orthus is in the middle of a sea, so swimming's sort of an essential skill we need."

Travis dived down and started swimming with powerful strokes to the other end. Percy followed him, and could easily keep up with him. Travis had to tilt his head to the side every few seconds or so to give himself air, but Percy contented himself with staring at the bottom as he flew along like a bird flew across the grey sky.

When they had swam the entire length of the pool, Percy was breathing more heavily. He felt a small burning in his four limbs, and had a bit of a headache as he looked at the others. He saw Malcom there, the boy with grey eyes the same as Annabeth from yesterday. He was breathing heavily and holding onto a bar that was sticking out of the edge of the pool. "See you got all outfitted by Leo."

Percy nodded, forgetting about the argument that had happened yesterday, and said, "Yeah, he was really good."

Malcom tightened his lips, but suddenly two figures burst from the water. Percy blinked as a tall blond man started treading water next to a smirking brown haired girl. The boy seemed a lot like Carter. Proper. But he was more nervous than Carter and not as relaxed, like he thought he was being watched. Percy had seen the usual posters of handsome soldiers parading around, but none of them looked as handsome as the boy. His blond hair looked just right, proper and well-cut in proper Olympian tradition, and his arms were muscular, just like they were shown in the posters.

"This the new guy?" He asked Malcom. Malcom nodded and said, "Percy, meet Jason and Piper."

Piper grinned, and Percy noticed that she was good looking as well, but he couldn't compare her with any posters. Females fighting with guns just seemed wrong, it seemed unnatural, and Olympians hated the unnatural and unusual. Just look at how Percy himself had been treated. He nodded and said, "Nice to meet you."

It was what he had been taught to say, what had been _natural. _Civility to fellow Olympians had been drilled into him since he was five and started learning at the public school his dad had sent him to. The fellow Olympian was supposed to nod and and say something like _nice to meet you to, _or _it's my pleasure. _Granted, these conversations rarely happened while both parties were swimming in a pool. Piper laughed, and Percy was intrigued by her brown skin. It hadn't occurred to him before, but Carter had black skin, far blacker than any skin colour Percy had seen. Olympians looked down on people who weren't pure blooded because of that dreaded unwritten law, but both Carter and Piper were completely fine with it.

"So what do you think of this place?" Piper asked. She was holding onto Jason while they both kicked up with their legs. One of her skinny shoulders was hidden behind Jason's bare back as she clung to him.

"It's amazing." Percy blurted. "All of the other people are really nice." Jason and Piper smiled at each other, but Malcom just snorted. "Enjoy it while you can." Jason sighed and said, "It wasn't your fault, Malcom."

Malcom curled his lip and said, "If you want self-blame go talk to Annabeth for a bit. I'm not under the illusion that what happened was my fault, even if I was friends with Ethan before this."

Malcom spat out the word Ethan as if it was a frog that had worked its way from his stomach and now had to escape from his mouth because of his disgust.

"Reyna's been bugging me about why we didn't let any of the Strikeforce on that mission." Jason said, "I'm going to have to tell her something legitimate, not just some stuff about Infiltrators taking care of Infiltrator business."

Malcom's grey steely eyes were fixed on the water below him. "Just ask Annabeth. Isn't she our little expert on lying?"

Piper's eyes flicked up and she nudged Jason, who was still treading water. Malcom looked behind him his face went almost as pale as his eyes when he saw Annabeth standing next to a door behind them. "Go train some more." She said. Her face didn't change one bit, but Malcom immediately dived into the pool and didn't resurface for another minute.

She turned to Percy and asked, "Enjoy yourself?" Percy opened his mouth but Annabeth wasn't listening and turned to Jason. "I'll handle Reyna. Don't worry about it."

"What are you going to tell her?" Jason asked, "She knows we insisted that the Strikeforce stay out of it because of Ethan and his troops."

Annabeth shrugged. "Reyna's stressed because she has to report to the War Cabinet. Just so long I come up with something that sounds legitimate she won't mind."

She turned to leave and added to Jason, "Make sure Percy doesn't get lost. Don't leave him alone, I don't need an attention deficit teenager wandering into the generator areas."

Jason saluted ironically, but quickly stopped as both he and Piper started sinking into the pool. Annabeth turned and left just as Malcom resurfaced. He was gasping from having held his breath for so long and said, "Damn, she's scary."

Jason smiled and started swimming over the edge of the pool. Piper let go of him and asked Percy, "Want to go see the obstacle course below?"

Percy nodded and dived down without waiting for Piper to lead him. Going into the water felt different, but not unnatural. His body had been designed to fit in the water, and he felt as if water was rushing in and out of his arms and leg while more water rushed through his mouth and out of his throat. Below him were several bars and hurdles attached to the bottom. He easily moved through some of them and swam over and under and around even flipped over a spar that he hadn't noticed until he had almost swam into it. He then pushed off the floor and surfaced again with a huge grin on his face.

Piper hadn't tried to follow him, choosing to float back next to Jason and asked, "Want to go somewhere alone while we leave Percy to enjoy himself?"

Jason smiled at her but shook his head, "I promised Annabeth that I'd make sure he got back safely. Besides, Beckendorf would kill me if Percy got his hands on some of those new guns."

"Beckendorf's too nice to kill anything except for Orthians," Piper said dismissively, "But sure. We can stay here then."

Leo had mentioned Beckendorf earlier, or maybe it was Annabeth who had mentioned the two of them. "Do the two of you go to Beckendorf for modifications?" Percy asked as he easily swam up to them, only slightly out of breath. They both nodded, and Percy asked, "What are your modifications?"

In answer, Jason held up his hand and electricity sparked from his fingertips. "My fingers can emit electricity. It can be a little effective in a country surrounded by water."

"A little?" Piper smirked, "You're one of the strongest half-bloods out here and you know it. Stop being modest."

"Reyna and Annabeth would say it's always good to have your enemies underestimate you." Jason smiled, earning him a splash of water from Piper. His shoulders were more relaxed and lower when he was talking to Piper. He wasn't trying to be all rigid and proper like Carter. Carter seemed to be able to pull it off naturally, but none of the others, not even Annabeth, could be as upright yet loose as Carter.

"You listen too much to Reyna," Piper said as they pushed themselves up from the water. Their arms both tensed and Percy just noticed that both of Jason's arms were black and polished, just like his. "What's your modification, Piper?"

"I have a couple of strengthenings in my tendons and joints, nothing visible." Piper said, "Apart from that, I have eye modifications that record peoples' expressions and the way their face moves. That sort of stuff. That, coupled with a bit of psychology research means I can usually tell if people are lying or not."

"Usually?" Percy asked, "So does that mean there are people who can lie to you?" He wasn't too sure how her eyes worked anyways. Maybe he'd ask Leo or this Beckendorf person they went to.

"Annabeth." Jason said with a grimace, "Piper can't understand Annabeth. She finds it hard when Annabeth's expression never changes."

That was right, Annabeth's _mask _that hid everything from everyone. They were like her steely eyes that didn't let anyone in and didn't let anything of herself out.

"Could Leo fix it?" Percy asked. He remembered Leo mentioning Jason and Piper before, but he wasn't prepared for the dark brooding look that both of them put on. The sad _mask, _or the serious _mask _that always came when people were sad and unhappy at the same time. Like when his teachers would take him out for _a little talk, _or whenever his mom was thinking about dad and thought Percy wasn't looking.

"We go to Beckendorf for our technical problems," Jason said carefully. There was a _mask _that was slowly coming up, and Percy knew not to try and push. He would just end up hurting his hands if he tried hitting a brick wall, and that was what these _masks _around him were made of.

There was another silence, after which Percy dove down into the pool and swam across the length of the pool, breathing in huge gulps of water and relishing the feeling of it rushing through his mouth and back out his throat. Carter had touched it in fascination, probably not knowing what kind of modification it was. He flew through and across and above and below the water, kicking hard and fast. He quickly touched the wall at the far end and somehow, instinctively, planted his feet on the wall and pushed off even faster back to where he started from.

He broke out of the water again, and looked up at Piper and Jason, who were smiling down at him. "Someone's enjoying himself." She waited for a bit, then said, "Jason and I are going to go practice our firearm skills. Want to come?"

Percy froze, remembering the huge _BANG! _that had come out of the weapon, and the way a bullet had shot out from the gun, recoiling painfully against his arm as the bullet tried to make its way into someone's skin and out through the other side.

Jason had come put his dripping hand on Percy's shoulder, but Percy shook it off. How many people had Jason killed with that hand? How many holes had he pierced in peoples' bodies? He seemed out of place, like a bird who had fallen in the water. Except that Percy could still fly through the water and breathe on land.

Piper squeezed Jason's arm, and Jason looked at her. "Maybe we should just go back to our rooms? Percy needs to change his clothes anyways."

Jason frowned in confusion, and Percy looked down and just realized he hadn't bothered taking off his shirt or trousers when he had first plunged into the pool, and he was soaked. Percy nodded distractedly, noticing how droplets of water ran down Jason's bicep and pooled around the crook of his elbow before trailing down his forearm and gathered on his fingers where they gathered into droplets and splashed and the ground. "Sure, I guess, if that's what you want. Just let us get changed first."

Jason gestured towards a set of doors that he walked through to change, and Piper followed through a different door. Percy went out the way he had come in with Annabeth and waited outside.

Annabeth, Travis, Grover, Jason, Piper, Leo. And Clarisse and Chiron, as well as Malcom, Michael, Carter and Reyna. All these new people that seemed so distinct, so different but alike. Before this, he had only known children, teachers and his mom. The children that sat at desks and repeated what the teachers said. The teachers standing in front of them and repeating what their teachers had said. And it had gone on and on, everyone looking the same, even though some had a smaller jawbone or were slightly shorter. But all the students in his school had the same heritage, only pureblood Olympian with black hair and pale skin. And all of them had the same bored yet yielding expression, like they had resigned themselves to opening their mouths and swallowing every word and ideal they were taught.

And then there had been his mom, who had stood out blazing with compassion and vision. She had _seen _Percy. Not the Percy that his teachers had thought him to be, but she had actually _seen _him. And Percy loved her for that.

But these people here were so different. Their skin colours were different, heights were different, eyes were different, _masks _were all different, characters were different, they were all so distinct and memorable. Especially Annabeth, with those grey eyes that seemed to _see_ through everything the same way Percy's mom would see through him. Even though Malcom had similar eyes, Annabeth's seemed different and sharper.

"Hey, look who just fell in the drink." It was Clarisse. Percy remembered her because she was carrying her spear halfway down the shaft. The one who had yelled at Travis for cheating. Travis had gotten away with that, Annabeth had even said they should all cheat, even though in school the teacher had said that cheating was something only Orthians did.

Percy nodded and said, "Can you swim?"

Clarisse snorted. "Of course I can. Hell, Chiron could probably tread water for a while before he sank if, for some reason, he fell in the sea."

The sea. The sea. Their enemy but Percy's desire. The sea. Percy dreamed about going there, past the grey buildings and black pavements to a blue expanse that went further than his imagination and with waves that flowed faster than his thoughts, and with far more power. "Why don't you like people?" Percy blurted out.

Clarisse was taken aback for a second, then rolled her eyes. "I see what Annabeth means, you're really an annoying brat."

"Hey," Jason said, as he came out of another door. "Why are you suddenly so unfriendly to the new guy? You don't like many people, but you never really went out of your way to call them out. You got something against him?"

"I'm not calling him out." Clarisse replied, twirling her spear absent-mindedly. "I-"

"Good." Jason said, cutting her off. "Because we're all just Olympians working towards the same goal, remember?"

"I remember." Clarisse said, "I also remember that you've lost your edge ever since you hooked up with that-"

"That what?" Piper said icily, coming out of yet another door (where did these doors all lead and where did they lead?)

Clarisse sneered at Piper and said, "You know exactly what I think of you."

Jason stepped between them, and Percy was surprised to see that Clarisse was almost as tall as Jason. It seemed jarring that a girl would be as big as a boy, all the girls and boy in the books, and even the children in Percy's school had noticeable differences in height and build. "That's enough. Go test out that spear of yours again."

"You don't outrank me, Jason. You're still part of the Strikeforce, even if you want to act like you're one of us."

Jason looked stonily at Clarisse, and Percy realized that Jason was dangerous. He was as dangerous as Clarisse's spear was. He hid it behind a smile and behind Piper, but he was dangerous. He was suddenly wearing Annabeth's expressionless _mask _that didn't let any of Clarisse's words to hit him. They would bounce off his _mask _the same way Percy had bounced off the wall behind him as he had been caught by the huge explosion that had shattered his world and sent flying into this confusing whirlwind that was now his new home.

Clarisse and Jason stared at each other for a few more seconds, then Piper tugged at Jason's sleeve. Percy noticed that the shirt Jason was wearing was orange, the same as Piper and Clarisse's. Piper tugged more insistently, and Jason stepped back, turning to Percy and saying, "Let's go. I'll show you some of the movies we've got."

Percy perked up immediately, and quickly followed Jason and Piper down more hallways. Piper glanced at Percy quickly, then quietly said to Jason, "Don't listen to her. She doesn't know what she's talking about."

Jason shook his head. "Maybe not all the time, but she was right this time. I could've insisted on more Strikeforce going on the mission. We should've been more direct, more forceful. And now Pollux and Castor are dead."

"It wasn't your fault." Piper said, gripping his arm tightly. "It was Orthus' fault. It was Ethan's fault. It was Luke's, but it wasn't yours."

"Maybe it wasn't my fault, but I could have prevented what happened. I should have been able to see through it all."

"What happened?" Percy asked, utterly confused. "What are you talking about?"

Piper and Jason looked at each other, then Piper slowly said, "Have you gotten the feeling that people have been acting a little strangely?"

"He's just gotten here," Jason said, "For all he knows this is what we're usually like." He sighed, then said, "Well, it's not like it's a secret. Every goddamn politician in the War Cabinet will be using it against us."

He stopped walking and leaned against the white and pristine wall. He ran his hand through his damp blond hair that stuck together in clumps. His blue eyes that seemed so bright, as bright as the sky, seemed to darken in sadness. Like the sunset that was sad because it knew that it would have to leave for a little while.

"There was a mission. It was a standard raid against an Orthus outpost. It was on the archipelago itself, not on Olympus, but it still should have been easy to infiltrate. That's what they're named for, isn't it?" Percy only understood half of what Jason had said, but still picked up on his sorrow and kept on nodding.

Jason continued. "Normally it wouldn't be such a big thing, but there was someone in the outpost that we wanted. He's called Ethan Nakamura. He used to be an Infiltrator but left them. Which meant the Infiltrators wanted to deal with it. Some of them have a grudge against Ethan. Anyways, they told the Strikeforce to butt out of it, and they went in secret to try to get to Ethan. I still don't know what they were going to do with him if they did get to him. Try to get him to talk?"

Jason's expression scared Percy. No smile. He sneered. His lip curled in hatred, and his eyes darkened even further until it seemed like he would kill someone. Jason's _mask _slipped and what was revealed was ugly and frightening.

Piper put her arm around Jason's waist and clung to him, letting her head rest on his chest. Jason's face softened, and his civilized and polite _mask _came back on. Piper picked up the story where Jason had left off. "Anyways, the Infiltrators walked into a trap. Pollux and Castor were killed instantly. Others got injured pretty badly. Connor actually lost his arm, and Thalia's still recovering from a gunshot wound to her kidney. It was only down to Clarisse holding their retreat and Annabeth's quick improvisation that we didn't lose any more lives."

Percy nodded. He supposed it made sense. "Is there any reason why Malcom seemed more angry than the others?"

Piper looked at Jason, who shrugged. "That's not for us to say. I wouldn't ask him though, he's still brooding about it."

"How do the Orthians fight?" Percy asked. It seemed like something he should know. It had never been touched upon in class. His teachers had never taught it to the class, never made them repeat it for days on end.

Jason's face brightened at the change of topic. He didn't smile but he looked Percy in the eye now. "They fight with different methods to ours. We use cybernetic modifications, Orthians use biological ones. They test genetic modifications on animals, and when they're perfected, then they're applied to humans."

Jason then paused, seeing Percy didn't understand what he was saying. "Basically, we attach metal body parts to ourselves, but the Orthians change their actual bodies. Does that make a little more sense?"

Percy then nodded. It did. And he was glad Jason had seen that. Teachers never did, and up until now, his mom had been the only one who had realized whenever Percy didn't understand. The rest looked at Percy as, what? Furniture? An animal? No, as a _child. _Children never needed to be listened to. They were to do what _teachers _told them to. They were to be fed ideas and to spit them back out, but never have ideas of their own.

But in this place, none of them were children. None of them were, not Leo, not Jason, and not him. He wasn't a child anymore, it had been blown off along with his arms, legs, skin and eyes. He wondered what kind of war required the fighters to change their bodies, change who they were. Percy wondered who Jason and Piper had been before they had gotten these modifications. How carefree and childlike were they before all this happened?

"So how many humans have had their bodies changed?" Percy asked. Jason looked at him and asked, "Any reason why you're so curious?"

"Not really." Percy said, "I just have questions, that's all."

Jason had smiled and the two of them had walked into a dark room with several shelves full of disks. "Have you heard of movies?"

Percy whirled his head around. He had heard of them, of course, but he had never seen one. He shook his head, and Jason had laughed. They put in a disk and watched a cartoon. Percy was startled when they turned out the lights, but then he was made speechless when light started coming from behind him, and he could see a real movie. It was moving pictures of perfectly drawn people moving and dancing about. Percy quickly forgot the plot and the names of the characters, but he liked it that way. He could see them again and again and be just as fascinated by the events and the characters as when he first started watching.

Percy quickly got lost in the grace of the main character, who danced about on rooftops with a long stick and slid on ice he himself had created. Percy remembered slipping on ice multiple times when he was small, and he still did slip a lot on the ice. His body would move without his mind, and before he knew it he'd be sitting on the ground, sometimes with classmates laughing and sniggering at him.

He couldn't remember anything in particular about the movie, but he remembered the wonderment and fascination he'd felt throughout the whole experience. He realized he had a huge grin on his face. Jason grinned back at him, and he said, "Enjoy it?"

Percy nodded, and Jason started to get up and turn on the lights when he heard the door open. Percy recognized Annabeth's voice immediately as she said, "He's too inexperienced. He can't even fire a gun and you want to send him in already?"

Another voice replied, and it took Percy a second to realize it was Chiron speaking. "You always wanted to do things efficiently, and without him, this mission will cost us."

"We don't need to accept this mission." Annabeth said, "It doesn't gain us anything except for an unstable and unpredictable boy."

"We gain a well-trained boy, who we can use." Chiron replied. Their voices were getting closer, and Jason motioned for Percy to lie on the couch the three of them had been sitting on. He and Piper then got up and stealthily made their way behind the shelves where the disks were being stored.

But it wasn't stealthy enough. Annabeth stopped and said, "I can see fine in the dark, Jason. Come out. Piper, turn on the lights."

Sheepishly, Jason started walking to where Piper was, and Percy looked up from where he had been lying down. "How've you been? What were you talking about just now?"

Annabeth looked at him for a second, then turned to Jason. "Leave eavesdropping to those who were trained to do it. Stick to what you're good at."

Jason flinched, but nodded and beckoned to Percy as he started to walk out. Percy started to follow, but Chiron held out an arm. "Why don't we ask him ourselves? He should have a say in what he does, don't you think?"

"None of us have a say in what we do." Annabeth said, "And I don't trust his judgement."

Chiron still smiled up at her, and Annabeth narrowed her eyes back at him. It seemed surreal that someone in a wheelchair could stand up to someone as strong and scary as Annabeth. Annabeth then sighed. "Do what you want then. But if he says yes and dies, his blood is on your hands."

Chiron nodded, and Annabeth left with Jason and Piper. Chiron looked up at Percy and smiled. "Have a seat."

Percy sat back down on the couch and Chiron rolled his way over to him. "How do you feel about this place so far, Percy?"

Percy coked his head thinking, then said, "Weird. It's good and bad."

"How so?" Chiron quirked an eyebrow at Percy as he pushed his wheelchair so that he was facing Percy.

"Well, people seem nice, but not nice." Percy was finding it hard to explain it. It felt like he was contradicting himself, going against whatever he said, and teachers never liked that.

_Olympians must be true to their word. Orthians may dabble in double-speak and trickery, but we Olympians must stay true to our word. _Percy had remembered repeating it again and again with the teacher and his students as the teacher strode up and down like a soldier on parade.

Chiron smiled. "I was not wrong. You are more perceptive than Annabeth gives you credit for." He paused, then asked, "Do you think what we are doing here is wrong?"

Percy frowned and said, "I don't think you should be killing people." He shuddered at the memory of the gun yelling at him as he pressed the trigger. The _BANG! _had startled him badly, and he still remembered how it felt.

Chiron nodded again. "What if you were about to be killed. Would you kill in self-defence?"

Percy didn't know the answer to this question, and his mind started swirling again. To avoid hurting his head, he thought about how Annabeth had been able to see through the dark. Could she see through the water as well?

"What if you didn't need to kill?" Chiron asked, "What if we needed you to rescue someone." Chiron was wheeling himself closer to Percy, and Percy suddenly wanted to draw back. Chiron seemed to be nice, but so did Jason, and there was something behind that _mask _of his as well. What if Chiron's whole being so far was just an intricate _mask? _

Percy shook his head, but Chiron continued, his brown eyes gazing intensely into Percy's new green ones. "We need you, Percy. You don't have to kill anyone yet, but you might need to run from people who do want to kill people."

"Why me?" Percy asked, "Why not Annabeth or Clarisse?"

"Because you can swim. You can swim better than any of them and can breathe in the water. Your father has given you a great gift, and it's now time to put that gift to use."

Percy looked down at his legs, but his mind was somewhere else. His _dad _wanted him to help. His _dad _had worked and had put his love through his limbs. How could he not fulfill and live up to his dad's love? Percy nodded. "I want to do it. For my dad."

Chiron frowned in surprise, but nodded slowly. "Very well then. The mission in concern is a rescue mission. I will give you the details later. Report to Annabeth now. Follow me."

Percy grinned and stood up, waiting for Chiron to leave the room before following him. Chiron wheeled himself smoothly down some corridors and up a lift. As they waited in the lift, Chiron asked, "Why the change of heart regarding your father?"

Percy looked down at Chiron's brown piercing eyes. They seemed to be able to see into him, not just his outer shell. His eyes were like Travis and Connor's eyes when they talked to him. And Percy felt at ease the same way he felt at ease with Travis and Connor. He felt comfortable talking to Chiron and projecting out his thoughts.

"I just want to repay him for giving me my new body." Percy stared at his black arms that were made of cold steel, and turned them around, examining them in the harsh light of the lift. The lift suddenly opened, and Percy walked out after Chiron, who said, "Still, your change of heart is surprising. Perhaps you should think through this more carefully, child."

Percy shook his head. He wanted to do it, wanted to use his dad's love to good use. He was going to make his dad even happier than he no doubt was. Chiron sighed. "Very well then. Just hide your enthusiasm in check around Annabeth. She won't be happy about this, especially since it is so irrational."

"She doesn't like things that don't make sense?"

"No, she doesn't." Chiron said. They rounded a corner and Percy opened another door for Chiron to roll through. "In her world things make sense. Things need to be ruled by logic. That's one of the reasons she finds you so aggravating."

Percy looked in confusion at Chiron, but Chiron didn't elaborate and opened the last door to a room that Annabeth, Malcom, and a few other half-bloods were sitting. "He has accepted."

Annabeth's looked flatly at Percy, but the look bounced off his oblivious head. She then turned and said, "How well can you read?"

Of course Percy could read. He didn't do it well, since he didn't like practicing, but he could read proficiently. He could read what the teacher wrote on the board, so he could avoid having a _little talk, _but he could still read.

Annabeth reached under the table and handed a file over to him. "Give this to Grover and have him help you read the file. It contains details to the mission."

Percy nodded and started walking out the door. He opened the file and saw that the first page was a profile of the person he was supposed to be rescuing. He remembered Annabeth referring to him as an _unstable and psychotic boy. _The boy looked like a proper Olympian, with white skin and black hair. He looked young even by the standards of the other half-bloods. There were a lot of words that Percy didn't bother reading. Well, that was a bit of a lie. He had read the first line of the page, and from what he could tell, it was the boy's name. After all, the first word of the line was _"name". _The next words, and the only other words on the page that Percy read, were _"Nico di Angelo"._

Three days. seventy two hours. Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. Twenty five thousand nine hundred and twenty seconds. That was how long it took before Percy was going out again. Three days, three days, three days. That made it almost a week since he had been blasted out of his house and his old life. A week ago he had been a child, listening and repeating to things a teacher said. And now what was he? Certainly not a child, but not a teacher either. Something else. Grover was sitting next to him, reading the file and about to explain things to him and make sure he understood. He was going to see more of Olympus, not just the dreary city he had been living in. And maybe there he'd find out what exactly he was

* * *

**So, really sorry that this update took me so long. I have school. That's basically it. We had a pretty long chapter (by my standards anyways) because I wanted to get to some action. Set up is still going on, but hopefully it'll be in a more exciting atmosphere. I'm actually not sure if I'll be able to update for another couple of months because I've got exams coming up soon.**

**...and no, I'm not going to say "April Fools!". I do mean it. Sorry if I let you guys down on that front. Were you guys expecting some author's prank in this note?**

**Anyways, thanks to all the guest reviews. Keep it up, because I appreciate every one of them. I just don't really know how to respond to them. Thanks to all the other reviewers with accounts for reviewing, because I really appreciate them as well. **

**Feedback's always appreciated. Even one word reviews. 'till next time.**


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